A Thousand Splendid Suns

The path is rough, winding, and dim, beneath the vegetation and undergrowth. The wind makes the tall grass slam against Laila's ...

floorboards. The rest, she imagines, have been ripped up for burning as firewood. The floor is carpeted now with dry edged leave ...

Laila jo? Laila's eyes snap open. She gasps, and her body pitches forward. She startles the bat, which zips from one end of the ...

whatever Jalil had intended remain a secret. But, in the end, the curiosity proves too strong. She slides in the key. It takes s ...

May 13, 1987 My dear Mariam: I pray that this letter finds you in good health As you know, I came to Kabul a month ago to speak ...

Mariam jo, I dare, I dare allow myself the hope that, after you read this, you will be more charitable to me than I ever was to ...

APRIL 2003 he drought has ended. It snowed at last this past winter, knee-deep, and now it has been raining for days. The Ka ...

Laila lets the children out of the house, locks the door. They step out into the cool morning. It isn't raining today. The sky i ...

The orphanage playground has a row of apple saplings now along the east facing wall. Laila is planning to plant some on the sout ...

painted in gleaming white. On it, with a brush, Zaman has written four lines of poetry, his answer, Laila knows, to those who gr ...

played again over dinner the night before. It has become a nightly ritual ever since Laila gave Tariq and the children the news. ...

AFTERWORD For almost three decades now, the Afghan refugee crisis has been one of the most severe around the globe. War, hunger, ...

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS A few clarifications before I give thanks. The village of Gul Daman is a fictional place as far as I know. Those ...