Khaled Housseini is an Afghan-American author who wrote the international best seller, The Kite Runner (2003). This book is actually has the same theme with The Kite Runner. The difference is just The Kite Runner's main characters are boys,  I mean their friendship. But in this novel, a thousand splendid suns is more about the couple's marriage, mother-daughter stories and love life. 

So, I will summarized this book.

There was a girl name Mariam who lived with her stubborn mother, Nana.Mariam was 'harami' which means she is illegitimate child. Her father was a

successful businessman and he used to visit Mariam, because he lived in Herat and Mariam lived in a far far away village. One day Mariam wanted to visit his dad in Herat but his mom didn't want to. Finally, she escaped and went to Herat. When she came, the house guard didn't allow her to enter the house. So, she slept on the street waiting her dad. She got tired and broken heart so Jalil's chauffeur drove her home. At home she found her mother commiting suicide. She was really sad and desperate. So his dad took her back to Herat. Jalil's family didn't have any idea to do withMariam so they decided to set a marriage with Rasheed, a widowed shoemaker in Kabul. Their marriage was dreadful. Rasheed was a rude man and becomes more and more abusive. Moreover Mariam was strile so she couldn't give him any child or even a son. 

 In the other hand, there were Laila and Tariq who fell in love with each other. Then war came to Afghanistan, and Kabul was bombarded by rocket attacks. Tariq's family decided to leave the city. Laila's family also decided to leave Kabul, but as they were packing a rocket destroys the house, killing her parents and severely injuring her. Laila was subsequently taken in by Rasheed and Mariam.

After recovering from her injuries, Laila discovered that she is pregnant with Tariq's child. After being informed by Abdul Sharif that Tariq has died, she agreed to marry Rasheed, a man eager to have a young and attractive second wife in hopes of having a son with her. When Laila gave birth to a daughter, Aziza, Rahseed was displeased and suspicious. He acted like before when he was with Mariam. So, Laila and Mariam became a friend.

Few years later, Laila gave birth to Zalmai. She was frustated because women's hospital is worst. Many medical instruments in the bad condition and insanitary. Taliban has changed everything. They made significant gaps for men and women facilities. They became more and more powerful than before. They also made rules that prohibit women appear in public without a male relative. There was a drought when living in Kabul became poor. Raheed's shop was also burn down. So Rasheed told Aziza she will sent her to school, but the truth was he sent her to orphanage.Then one day Tariq met Laila. Laila was shocked with the Tariq's presence. Finally she found out

that Rasheed had lied to her. Rasheed was also angry because he knew that Aziza wasn't his child. They were fighting. Rasheed started to savagely beat Laila. He nearly strangled her, but Mariam intervened and killed Rasheed with a shovel. Afterward, Mariam confessed to killing Rasheed in order to draw attention away from Laila and Tariq. Mariam was publicly executed, allowing Laila and Tariq to leave for Pakistan with Aziza and Zalmai. 

"Every street of Kabul is enthralling to the eye

Through the bazaars, caravans of Egypt pass

One could not count the moons that shimmer on her roofs

And the thousand splendid suns that hide behind her walls"

(page 375)

While reading this book, I found many Afghanistan words. They didn't make any translations or even note about that words so it's quite confusing me. But luckily, I have an Afghan classmate so I could ask her instead of googling it. Some words may be the same as Turkish such as they said chai or in Turkish çay for tea. Futhermore I found Indonesian word too!

I asked my friend about the word 'Pahlawan' and  'Almari',  in Indonesian we aslo use the same word for 'Hero' and 'cupboard'.

isn't it excited?

I also asked some of my Afghan friends about Taliban. They said Taliban is still alive but the population isn't much as before. They told me, during the war they moved to Pakistan or some countries around Afghanistan.Some poor people who didn't afford enough money, they lived with Taliban and they were really terrible. One memorable thing is Taliban was bombed the Biggest Budha statue. My friend said, it was bombed because the statue brought many Buddhist to Afghan while in Afghanistan, majority people are Moslem. So Taliban were being disturbed and poof! They bombed it.