FROM THE COVER:

"This powerful first novel...tells a story of fierce cruelty and fierce yet redeeming love. Both transform the life of Amir, Khaled Hosseini's privileged young narrator, who comes of age during the last peaceful days of the monarchy, just before his country's revolution and its invation by Russian forces. But political events, even as dramatic as the ones that are presented in The Kite Runner, are only a part of this story. In The Kite Runner, H Khaled Hosseini gives us a vivid and engaging story that reminds us how long his people ahve been struggling to triumph over the forces of violence--forces that continue to threaten them even today." -- The New York Times Book Review

"A marvelous first novel...the story of two young boys who are friends in Afghanistan, and an incredible story of the culture. It's an old-fashioned kind of novel that really sweeps you away." -- Isabel Allende

"Brilliant, startling plot twists make this book memorable both as a political chronicle and a deeply personal tale about how childhood choices affect our adult lives. The character studies alone would make this a noteworthy debut, from the portrait of the sensitive, insecure Amir to the multilayered development of his father, Baba, whose sacrifices and scandalous behavior are fully revealed only when Amir returns to Afghanistan and learns the history and its ramifications in both America and the Middle East....The result is a complete work of literature that succeeds in exploring the culture of a previously obscure nation that has become a pivotal point in the global politics of a new millennium, It is rare that a book is at once so timely and of such high literary quality." -- Publisher's Weekly

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