Khaled Hosseini

The eldest of five children, Khaled Hosseini was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 1965. His father
was a diplomat in the Afghan Foreign Ministry, and his mother taught Farsi and history at a large
high school in Kabul. The nature of his father's position with the Ministry meant that Hosseini's
childhood was an understandably nomadic one-his family lived in three different countries
within the course of ten years. In 1980, just as the family was scheduled to return to Kabul from
Paris, the communists staged a bloody coup, and the Soviets invaded. Instead of returning to
Afghanistan, the Hosseinis were granted political asylum by the United States and settled in San
Jose, California. The early years were difficult-the family struggled to make ends meet and
assimilate into a new culture-but the Hosseinis persevered. After earning his bachelor's degree
in biology, Hosseini earned his medical degree from the University of California San Diego School
of Medicine in 1993. Hosseini has been a practicing physician in the Bay Area since 1996, but his
first love has always been writing. Hosseini's fond and memories of Afghanistan before the
Soviets invaded and his friendship with an Afghan Hazara, who lived with his family when he was
a child, inspired the writing of the The Kite Runner. Hosseini's second novel (also set in
Afghanistan) is scheduled to be published in the summer of 2006.

If you'd like to learn more about Khaled Hosseini and his work, the Literature Resource Center in
our collection of research databases is an excellent place to start your research. It offers
biographic information and related magazine articles and websites.

During the course of an interview on National Public Radio, Hosseini talks about kite flying, the
Pashtuns and the Hazara, and his childhood in Kabul.

In a lengthy interview with Riverhead Books, Kosseini discusses (among other topics) his
thoughts about recent events in Afghanistan, the difficulties his family encountered when they
relocated to the U.S., and the evolution of his novel.

On the Same Page · The Public Library of Cincinnati and Hamilton County

"It is a tremendous honor for me that The Kite Runner has been selected for Cincinnati's On The
Same Page community reading program. I am grateful and proud. I hope this novel of my
homeland resonates with Cincinnati's readers and, through its universal themes of friendship,
loss, and redemption, helps bridge gaps. I also hope The Kite Runner offers insight into Afghan
culture and helps humanize in some way the Afghan people's trials and hardships of the last
quarter of a century."

-Khaled Hosseini

Winter, 2004