Khaled Hosseini is a medical doctor turned award winning author. He wrote his first novel, The Kite Runner, inspired by his experiences as an Afghan refugee. The widely read and lauded debut novel launched him to massive global fame.
Now, the Seattle Opera will stage the opera adaptation of his second book, A Thousand Splendid Suns. The world premiere is set for February 2023. Afghan filmmaker Roya Sadat will direct.
Hosseini is also a goodwill ambassador for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). With the organization, Hosseini also founded the Khaled Hosseini Foundation to provide humanitarian assistant to Afghanistan.
Khaled Hosseini released The Kite Runner in 2003
Hosseini published his first and most recognized work, The Kite Runner, in 2003. The novel follows a young boy in Kabul during the rise of the Taliban after the Afghan monarchy’s collapse. This coming-of-age story explores themes of father and son, class, guilt, and redemption. The film adaptation later premiered in December 2007.
Prior to this, Hosseini practiced internal medicine from 1996-2004. He completed his residency in Los Angeles at the Cedars-Sinai medical center. The novelist retired from medicine following the success of his first book.
“I was working full-time as a doctor [when I decided to write The Kite Runner], so I would basically get up at about 4:45, 5:00 in the morning, and I would write the novel for about three hours and then get ready and leave, see my patients at 8:45, and then I would do it again the next day,” Hosseini described.
A Thousand Splendid Suns is Hosseini’s second novel, published in 2007. The book follows two women’s lives during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
“Almost as soon as I had finished “The Kite Runner,” I knew I wanted to write a second book, and I knew I wanted to write about women,” Hosseini said. “Because I had gone to Afghanistan in March of 2003 and seen firsthand the aftermath of the war there, heard so many stories about what happened to women, the tragedies that they had endured, the difficulties, the gender-based violence that they had suffered.”
In 2013 Hosseini published And the Mountains Echoed. He released the illustrated novel Sea Prayer in 2018. Sea Prayer was originally a 2017 virtual reality experience inspired by the Syrian Refugee Crisis.
Khaled Hosseini fled Afghanistan in childhood
Hosseini was born in Kabul, Afghanistan in 1965.
“I loved to read as a kid,” Hosseini explained. “In fact, I was raised in a household where classic Persian literature and poetry was revered and prized…I grew up around the likes of Saadi and Hafez and Omar Khayyam and Rumi and people like that.”
“I discovered Western novels, though translated into Farsi, at a local little bookshop in Kabul,” he said. “And I really fell in love with prose at that time and I began writing my first short stories at that age.”
Hosseini’s father was a diplomat with the Afghan Foreign Ministry. His mother taught history and Farsi at a girls’ high school in Kabul. The Ministry relocated the family to Tehran for a few years, and to Paris in 1976. Hosseini is the eldest of four boys and a girl.
“We came to the U.S. in 1980, this was a few months after the Soviets invaded, right around the time that President Reagan was elected, just before,” Hosseini recalled. “We were one of the early families that came to the U.S. in Northern California.”
“I think that was a very difficult adjustment for my parents, because they were always kind of on the giving end of charity, and now suddenly they were on government sponsored aid, which was a real embarrassment for them,” he said.
Hosseini attended high school in San Jose, California. In 1988, the novelist earned a B.S. in biology from Santa Clara University. He earned his MD from the University of California San Diego. He is married to his wife, Roya, with whom he has two kids, Haris and Farah.
The Seattle Opera to premiere A Thousand Splendid Suns
A Thousand Splendid Suns takes place in Afghanistan from the 1960s to the 1990s. Mariam is a 15-year-old girl from a rural community who marries Rasheed, a middle-aged cobbler in Kabul. 14 years later, the Soviets invade and later Kabul falls into the hands of the Taliban. Rasheed brings home a beautiful 14-year-old city girl, Laila, and marries her. The women clash at first. Eventually, the two bond and band together against their abusive husband.
The Seattle Opera will host the world premiere of A Thousand Splendid Suns as part of its 2022-2023 season. The opera is the work of composer Sheila Silver and librettist Stephen Kitsakos.
Hosseini gave Silver his permission to adapt the book on two conditions. First, the characters will wear burkas onstage during the same scenes as in the book. He also requested that the Quran be handled respectfully.
The two-act opera will feature 2 children and 11 singers. The full orchestra will incorporate influences of North Indian classical music.
The Seattle Opera and The American Opera Project co-commissioned the work with the support of various grants and funds.
Peruse A Thousand Splendid Suns here.
