Kite runner
The Kite Runner is a novel by the Afghan - American writer Khaled Hosseini , published in 2003. The story of a childhood in Afghanistan has sold over eight million copies in over 34 countries. In 2007, the novel was by Marc Forster filmed .
action
Amir and Hassan, two boy friends from different ethnic groups, grew up in Kabul in the 1970s. Amir, son of an upper-class Pashtun , makes serious allegations for the death of his mother, who died in his birth. Hassan, the son of the house servant Ali and a member of the Hazara , a discriminated ethnic group , likes to have Amir read stories to him. Hassan can neither read nor write, but his character is a thoroughly sincere person and Amir, whom he admires very much, devoted to unshakable friendship. The two boys enjoy life in middle-class Kabul.
One day the stronger Assef tries to beat up the two friends. Hassan drives out Assef and his friends with his twin . Baba, Amir's father, gives Hassan's birthday an operation that removes his congenital harelip. A little later, however, on the day the two of them win a competition with paper kites , Hassan is beaten up and raped by Assef. Amir, who is secretly observing this but is too cowardly to help Hassan, makes serious accusations after this incident. Out of shame about his failure, he cannot handle the fact that Hassan is still around and blames Hassan for a fictitious theft so that he can be chased out of the house. Hassan admits the act, although he did not commit it. Amir's father - called Baba by him - forgives the alleged act, but Hassan's father Ali leaves the house with his son to avoid the shame.
After the Soviet invasion , Amir and his father flee to Pakistan . They later move to California , where Amir graduates from college. Amir meets Soraya, daughter of a respected Afghan general, who has also fled Afghanistan, and marries her. Shortly after the wedding, Amir's father dies. Amir's first book appears. In 2001 Amir was asked to come to Pakistan by his father's old friend Rahim Khan, who had encouraged him to write at the time. When he arrived there, he learned from him that Hassan was the son of his father Baba and the servant Sanaubar. Hassan and his wife Farzana were killed by the Taliban , leaving behind a son, Suhrab. Rahim Khan asks Amir to return to Kabul to take Suhrab out of the orphanage.
In Kabul, which was marked by the atrocities of Taliban rule , Amir learns that Suhrab is no longer in the orphanage, but was abducted by an influential Taliban. It turns out that this Taliban official is Assef and is abusing Suhrab as Baccha Baazi . Amir demands the surrender of Suhrab, but is challenged to a life and death fight and brutally beaten by Assef. Suhrab saves him with a twin shot in Assef's eye - he can do it as well as his father. With the help of a driver, the two are able to flee back to Pakistan. Amir wants to adopt the boy and take him to the United States , but it turns out that this is far from easy. In Islamabad , Suhrab learns that he may have to go to an orphanage again, whereupon he attempts suicide. Amir takes the boy to the United States. Suhrab lives withdrawn and no longer speaks. Only when flying a kite on the California coast does the ice melt between him and Amir.
Characters
Amir - born in Kabul in 1963 , is the main character and also the narrator of the novel. He is a wealthy Pashtun boy in monarchical Afghanistan who emigrates to America with his father after the Soviet invasion. Amir is Hassan's half-brother , which he only finds out much later. He is married to Soraya.
Hassan - born in the winter of 1964, is a loyal childhood friend of Amir. Although Amir never really confessed to him, they are best friends. He has a doll-like, Chinese face, green eyes and a cleft lip. First, Hassan appears as the son of Ali and Sanaubar. However, it later emerges that Hassan is the illegitimate son of Baba and Sanaubar and thus Amir's half-brother. Hassan dies without knowing the truth about his relationship to Amir and Baba.
Assef - a sadistic , pedophile and sociopathic teenager from Amir's neighborhood in Kabul, Amir's antagonist . The son of an Afghan father and a German mother is a supporter of Pashtun rule over the Hazara. As a teenager he raped Hassan. After the rape , he gives Amir a book about his great hero, Adolf Hitler, on the occasion of Amir's birthday party. Many years later, he is an executioner of the Taliban . As an adult, he repeatedly raped Hassan's son - Suhrab - and numerous other young children of both sexes.
Baba - the father of Amir and Hassan. He was born in 1933 (when the Afghan king begins his 40-year reign). He is a larger than average, strong man with wild brown hair and a beard. He loves parties at his big house in Kabul and is known for his strength - he reportedly fought and won with a big black bear when he was younger. Baba is a successful businessman and a benevolent force in the community. He's helping many other people build their own businesses and has financed and built an orphanage out of his own pocket. He believes that there is only one sin, which is theft, and that all other wrongdoing results from that sin. He is not a believer in the usual sense. Baba wishes that his son, who delves into books, would be “more manly”. After fleeing Afghanistan and entering the United States , he ages quickly and dies of cancer at the age of fifty-three . He lived long enough to see his son Amir marry a young Afghan woman named Soraya. Many people bid him farewell at his funeral.
Ali - is the servant of Baba and his good friend. He has been in the family since he was adopted by Baba's father, a well-known judge, after his parents died from a ruthless driver. As a result of polio , his right leg is paralyzed. At first he appears as Hassan's father, which later turns out to be wrong. After Baba and Amir leave Afghanistan, he is killed by a land mine.
Rahim Khan - Baba's business partner and best friend in Afghanistan. He later tells Amir that Baba is Hassan's biological father. Amir has liked him since childhood, also because he's the only adult who encourages him to write. Rahim Khan brings Amir back to Pakistan to free Suhrab from the hands of the Taliban in Afghanistan. He leaves Amir a letter telling him not to look for him. He dies peacefully knowing that he made Amir the man Baba always wanted.
Soraya - an Afghan woman who lives in Fremont, California with her parents. Her father is a former Afghan general named Taheri. She marries Amir, whom she meets at the weekly flea market. Because just like Amir and his father, their parents sell used and second-hand things on the market to increase their family's income. General Taheri lives mainly from public welfare. He considers himself too posh for normal work and is constantly waiting for a call back from Afghanistan so that he can return to his previous position. Before she met Amir, she ran away with an Afghan friend. That actually makes them - according to Afghan tradition - unsuitable for marriage. Because Amir himself bears a great debt, he loves and marries her anyway. Soraya desperately wants to have children, but cannot have any due to unexplained infertility . For her part, it is also a great wish to become a teacher.
Suhrab - is the son of Hassan. He is traumatized after his parents were murdered by the Taliban and he was repeatedly raped by Assef. Rahim Khan contacted Amir to persuade him to return to Afghanistan to find Hassan's son Suhrab. In the end, he is adopted by Amir and Soraya and goes to the USA with Amir to live with them.
Sanaubar - is Ali's wife. She gives birth to Hassan as a result of an affair with Baba. She then leaves home to lead a life as a gypsy . She may also have had an affair with an Afghan army soldier, which he said to Hassan. Whether this is true or whether the soldier was just trying to make fun of the Hazara has never been clarified. When Hassan grew up, she returned to him feeling guilty for abandoning him when he was a young child. She is also very important to Suhrab as a grandmother, who gave her the nickname “Sasa”.
Farid - a Tajik driver who at first doesn't like Amir, but later becomes friends with him. Two of Farid's seven daughters had been killed in a land mine years earlier, with his left hand mutilated and some of his toes affected. Farid is Amir's driver who has information and knowledge about the current Afghanistan and is therefore a great help in the search for Suhrab. After a night with Farid's brother's impoverished family, Amir hides a wad of money under the mattress he sleeps on so that he can show his gratitude for the hospitality of this poor family.
successes
When Khaled Hosseini published the novel Kite Runner in 2003, hardly anyone expected that this book would be a great success. The kite runner became a world best seller. Eight million copies of the book have been sold to date, and it is available in 34 languages. The novel was also released as a film in 2007.
Kite Runner received the South African Book Prize in 2004. According to the American book publisher Nielsen BookScan , it was also the first bestseller in 2005 in the USA. The novel was also voted Book of the Year 2006 and 2007, a list of 60 titles submitted by market participants, and won the Penguin / Orange Reading Prize from the world's second largest book publisher, Penguin Books .
Adaptations
In 2007 the novel was filmed by the German-Swiss director Marc Forster based on a script by David Benioff . The film was shot in various locations in California and China .
The novel was adapted for the stage by Matthew Spangler in the USA . Kite Runner premiered on the Arizona Theater Company stage in September 2009, directed by David Ira Goldstein .
In September 2011, The Kite Runner was published as a graphic novel by Bloomsbury Verlag , with illustrations by Fabio Celoni and Mirka Adolfo . The German translation from Italian is by Pieke Biermann .
Web links
- Review notes in perlentaucher.de
- Homepage of Khaled Hosseini
- Interview with the author (Berlin publishers)
- Interview with the author (Die Zeit)
Individual evidence
- ↑ kultur.ard.de ( Memento of the original from October 21, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed January 20, 2008.
- ↑ Cf. Antonia Rados: Sex Slaves in Afghanistan ( BZ Online )
- ^ Filming locations for The Kite Runner, accessed December 20, 2007
