A thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

If you watched CNN these past 20 years, you know as much as the author about Afghanistan
I had high hopes for this book after reading so many glowing reviews, and was surprised at how dull and badly written it is, not to mention devoid of any information about Afghanistan. To anyone with even a superficial knowledge of the Middle East and Islam (like myself), this books feels phony. Farsi and Turkish words are scattered throughout the first half, seemingly to impress the Western audience and exuding a mystical aura. If you understand the words being used, it just looks silly. Why say 'bulbul bird' when you can say 'nightingale', and would never say 'nightingale bird'? Why say 'namaz prayer' rather than 'namaz' or 'prayer'? Why say 'tasbeh rosary', since those two words mean the same thing? How can the author not know the call to prayer (azan) is not once a day but five times a day? And what on earth is 'la illah u ilillah'???? (It should be written 'la ilaha illallah' - There is no God other than Allah. It is only The Most Important Phrase In Islam!)

The book (the author?) has strangely spotty knowledge not only about Islam but also about Afghanistan itself. The only monument ever mentioned in this book are the two giant Buddha statues that were blown up by the Taliban, the only Afghan monuments known to most Western people. Cultural references to Hemingway's 'Old Man And The Sea', Pinocchio, and Titanic just further reduce the credibility of the book, which appears to be written for a foreign audience.

All this felt bizarre until I read a bit about Khaled Hosseini and found out that he had left Afghanistan for Paris with his family in 1976 (when he was 11), and moved on to the US where he lives to this day. So he wasn't even there when the Soviets took over, or when Mujahideen fought them, nor when Taliban took control. He learned about all this the way we all did - from TV and newspapers. The author sadly does not remember much about life in Afghanistan, aside from things like most of the Western world is aware of - women are mistreated and Taliban blew up the Buddha statues. And that is painfully obvious when reading this book.

1.0 out of 5 stars