A thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini

Do not believe the hype

Having spent time both reading about the history of Afghanistan and actually visiting the country I do not have many good words to write about this incredibly over-hyped novel. There are two main issues that exist with this book: characterisation and insight into Afghanistan.

The first thing that hits you about this bestselling (and most recommended) novel is the extremely poor characterisation. The characters can be categorised as either heroic or evil - a wholly unsatisfactory method for making you care about their development. Secondly the insight into Afghanistan can only be described as laughable. As other reviewers have noted it manages to tell us about the destruction of the Buddha's of Bamiyan and how evil the Taliban were/are - wow tell us something we do not know!

This book is an excellent example of orientalist literature that does nothing but confirm Western perceptions of the other - it is written by someone with a distinct lack of knowledge of Afghanistan and has been jumped on by readers in the West in order to confirm their misjudgments. However that is not the worst thing...this book is terribly written and that is the real reason not to buy this horrible piece of trash.

1.0 out of 5 stars