A Thousand Splendid Suns

"Do you fully understand what you're saying?" the bony faced Talib to the judge's right, not the tea giver, said. This one was t ...

compassionate. "But I cannot help but be disturbed by the brutality of your action, hamshira I am troubled by what you have done ...

the water she sank Mariam had disjointed dreams that last night. She dreamed of pebbles, eleven of them, arranged vertically. Ja ...

For the first time that day, Mariam cried a little. Thousands of eyes bore down on her. In the crowded bleachers, necks were cr ...

He has created the heavens and the earth with the truth; He makes the night cover the day and makes the day overtake the night, ...

PART FOUR ariq has headaches now. Some nights, Laila awakens and finds him on the edge of their bed, rocking, his undershirt ...

enough to know that he was here, to feel the warmth of him next to her, to lie with him, their heads touching, his right hand la ...

"He said that?" "He doesn't have to, Aziza." "Tell me the rest, Mammy. Tell me so I know." And Laila did. "Your father is a good ...

samovar houses. And one day it will hit him, walking along some meandering river, or gazing out at an untracked snowfield, that ...

ne Sunday that September, Laila is putting Zalmai, who has a cold, down for a nap when Tariq bursts into their bungalow. "Di ...

Laila and Tariq work their way in. The TV is tuned to BBC. On the screen is a building, a tower, black smoke billowing from its ...

muted passion, fully clothed beneath the blanket as a precaution against interruptions by the children. They are forever wary of ...

orphaned by a rocket as she was. Laila cannot bring herself to say it. It's hard to rejoice. It seems hypocritical, perverse. Th ...

or Laila, life in Murree is one of comfort and tranquility. The work is not cumbersome, and, on their days off, she and Tari ...

Laila is struck again by how beautiful he is, the perfect curve of his forehead, the slender muscles of his arms, his brooding, ...

agitated Aziza, who still has nightmares, who'd been startled to tears the week before when someone had shot rounds into the sky ...

restaurants pass by. When the bus passes the shrine to Imam Reza, the eighth Shi'a imam, Laila cranes her neck to get a better v ...

"I worry." "I'll be fine," Laila says. "I promise. Take the children to a market. Buy them something." Zalmai begins to cry when ...

wheelbarrows filled with stones. They stop and watch the car pass by. The driver takes a turn, and they pass a cemetery with a w ...

beaded cushions to sit on, and a framed photo of Mecca on the wall They sit by the open window, on either side of an oblong patc ...