The Kite Runner
In the late 1970s Kabul, Amir is the bookish son of a prominent Pashtun businessman, and Hassan is the son of the family's Hazara servant, born into a lower caste but devoted to Amir without reservation. One winter day, after a kite-fighting tournament that should have been the happiest of Amir's life, he witnesses something being done to Hassan in an alley and does nothing to stop it. The guilt reroutes the next thirty years of his life, from the family's flight from the Soviet invasion to their new life in California to a summons back to a Kabul now ruled by the Taliban. Khaled Hosseini's 2003 debut is a devastating novel about betrayal, friendship, and the long reach of a single childhood silence.
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What you might want to know about The Kite Runner
The questions readers send us most often, answered without spoilers.
Amir grows up in 1970s Kabul as the son of a wealthy Pashtun merchant, with the family's Hazara servant boy Hassan as his closest friend. After the day of the city kite-fighting tournament, Amir does something he cannot undo. The book follows him from California exile back to Taliban Kabul.
The Kite Runner is fictional but informed by Khaled Hosseini's own childhood in Afghanistan before his family fled to the United States in 1980. The historical and cultural details are deeply researched.
Yes. The Kite Runner has been frequently challenged in American schools, primarily for sexual content (especially the depiction of child sexual assault) and language. It remains widely taught in literature courses.
The Kite Runner was written by Khaled Hosseini, published in 2003 by Riverhead Books.
The Kite Runner is 96 pages in standard print editions, though page counts vary slightly between hardcover, paperback, and large-print formats.
At an average reading pace of about 250 words per minute, The Kite Runner takes most readers 1 to 2 hours to finish.
The Kite Runner is a standalone novel by Khaled Hosseini, not part of a series.
The Kite Runner is available in hardcover, paperback, ebook, and audiobook formats from Amazon, Bookshop.org, ThriftBooks, and most major bookstores.