The Associated Press talks with Khaled Hosseini about his inspiration for his bestselling novel, The Kite Runner. Hosseini, an physician who was born in Afghanistan, says that he first wrote a short story about two Afghan boys who enjoyed flying kites. He wrote the original short story six years ago, all in one 12-hour stretch. He didn't pick up the manuscript again until two years later when his father-in-law read the story and told him it should be longer.
"I revisited the short story and decided that maybe there was a book in it," Hosseini recalls, leaning against the thick cushions of his living room sofa. "It really started off very small."
*****
"That it would reach this kind of readership is pretty stunning," says Hosseini, wearing a striped button-down shirt and white pants. "It's still pretty weird."
*****
Hosseini, 40, is surprisingly modest for a first-time novelist who has enjoyed such phenomenal success. He's still getting used to his newfound fame, and says he never intended to be a writer.
"I always loved writing, but I really just did it for myself because I enjoyed the act of writing and creating stories," says Hosseini, speaking English with only a slight accent. "I never wrote with the aim of publishing. ... Now I find myself doing it for a living, at least for the time being."
Hosseini and his wife, a Silicon Valley attorney who is also of Afghan descent, speak to their children in both Farsi and English and maintain close ties to the San Francisco Bay area's Afghan community.
*****
Hosseini comes from a large, prominent family in Kabul. His father was a diplomat and his mother was a teacher. He's the oldest of five children raised in a secular household. And while there's no single childhood event that haunts him, Hosseini says he always felt guilty about his privilege.
"I was raised in an affluent life in a very poor country, and you always have that sense of guilt about your own good fortune," he says.
It's an interesting interview: some Afghan-Americans were unhappy that Hosseini openly talked about some issues that they thought should remaim private among Afghans. But Hosseini feels strongly about the book he wrote, and stuck to his vision. Hosseini lives in America now, where he practices medicine and is working on his next book.
