Spanning more than four decades of Afghan history, A Thousand Splendid Suns tells the story of two women whose lives are bound together by war, marriage, and an unexpected loyalty. Mariam, the illegitimate daughter of a wealthy Herat businessman, is married off at fifteen to Rasheed, a much older shoemaker in Kabul. Years later, a generation younger and raised in a more liberal household, Laila is thrown into the same home by tragedy and becomes Rasheed's second wife.
Forced to share a household and a violent husband, the two women move from wary hostility to a fierce, sustaining bond. Against the backdrop of the Soviet occupation, the civil war between rival factions, and the rise of the Taliban, Khaled Hosseini follows Mariam and Laila through decades of hardship, small joys, and impossible choices.
From the author of The Kite Runner, this is an intimate portrait of resilience and sacrifice set against a country in upheaval — a story of mothers and daughters, of what women endure, and of the love that survives even the darkest circumstances.
