A Thousand Splendid Suns

At the stream, Mariam waited by the spot they had agreed on the day before. In the sky, a few gray, cauliflower shaped clouds dr ...

pyramids of cherries and mounds of grapes. Barefoot boys gave chase to cars and buses, waving bags of quinces. Mariam stood at a ...

A barefoot young woman opened the door. She had a tattoo under her lower lip. "I'm here to see Jalil Khan. I'm Mariam. His daugh ...

The driver sighed and looked at her with gentle reproach. Over the years, Mariam would have ample occasion to think about how th ...

The driver talked in a muted, consoling tone as he drove. Mariam did not hear him. All during the ride, as she bounced in the b ...

hey buried Nana in a corner of the cemetery in Gul Daman. Mariam stood beside Bibi jo, with the women, as Mullah Faizullah r ...

life have turned upside down so quickly, Mariam asked herself. She kept her gaze to the ground, on her feet, stepping on the gra ...

And as Mariam watched Jalil shake these strangers' hands, as she saw him cross his palms on his chest and nod to their wives, sh ...

"No." Niloufar dropped her legs and pulled her blouse back down. "I could teach you," she said, pushing hair from her flushed br ...

"You don't need excuses. Not you." "You're kind to say that, Mariam jo." He passed her his Koran. As he'd taught her, she kissed ...

hey sat across from her, Jalil and his wives, at a long, dark brown table. Between them, in the center of the table, was a c ...

learn Pashto." Mariam's chest was tightening. The room was reeling up and down, the ground shifting beneath her feet. "He's a sh ...

"True that it would be preferable that you marry a local, a Tajik, but Rasheed is healthy, and interested in you. He has a home ...

his mouth, but all that came forth was a single, pained groan. "Say something," Mariam said. Then Jalil did, in a thin, threadba ...

n the morning, Mariam was given a long sleeved, dark green dress to wear over white cotton trousers. Afsoon gave her a green ...

He asked the question two more times. When Mariam didn't answer, he asked it once more, this time more forcefully Mariam could f ...

"You are now husband and wife," the mullah said."Tabreek. Congratulations." Rasheed waited in the multicolored bus. Mariam coul ...

Faizullah." She turned and walked around to the side of the bus. She could hear him following her. When she reached the hydrauli ...

t was early evening the following day by the time they arrived at Rasheed's house. "We're in Deh Mazang," he said. They were ...

suffocated Mariam. Pangs of longing bore into her, for Nana, for Mullah Faizullah, for her old life. Then she was crying. "What' ...