Susanne Pari: Welcome everyone. Last week in New York the television humorist and satirist Steven Colbert who has just come out with a book of his own, complained that after making fun of Khaled Hosseini's novel "The Kite Runner" his yard was filled with women's Book Clubs. Well Steven Colbert should be so lucky. Yesterday I took a look at Khaled's new blog which has only one very nice entry that I am sure he wrote before he began an exhausting tour for this new book. He probably has no idea that there are already 87 responses, all glowing reviews from fans. This was perhaps the most effective way to understand some of the reasons why both of Khaled's books are world bestsellers. Here is a blog post from a young named Tom. "Dear Mr. Hosseini I had to yet to complete a book in all my four years in High School. This being my senior year, my teacher set up literacy circles and I had to read "The Kite Runner." It captured my attention within the first two chapters. This was honestly the best book I have ever started to read and I finished it." Another post "Hi, I am Analisa an Italian girl, who has readed this book with the Italian title Il cacciatore de aquiloni. It's very beautiful and it passionated me so much from the first lines. And then there was one written in pinglish which is the transliteration of Persian using the English alphabet from an Iranian man who has translated "The Kite Runner" into Farsi twice in hopes of getting permission from the Ministry of Culture and Guidance in Iran to publish it. The truth is Khaled in my books would be about this slim once the Islamic censors had their way with them. When I first met Khaled one of my first thoughts was that he would be the kind of doctor who warmed up the working end of his stethoscope between his hands before touching it to a person's bare chest. And when he and his wife told me that they had read and loved my novel I was naturally certain he was a great and wonderful man. But besides being both the descendants of the Persian Empire I think Khaled and I share a few other things in common. For us I think story telling is the purpose of writing, it is not about sending a political message or about teaching the reader or about grabbing attention through sensationalism. Its about creating an intricate, often dizzying society of characters and events and ideas, that not only touch people but touch us as writers that help us make sense of the world even when a part of the world is through exile or immigration amputated from us. It's that wonderful feeling of being able to say, listen to this. It's an old story told in a new way, a story you've forgotten. A story that will awaken you, take you out of yourself and maybe hopefully bring you closer to what is out there. So listen to this "A Thousand Splendid Suns" use the plight of Afghanistan during the last half century through the eyes of two women who wind up married to the same man and I won't say anything else. Khaled Hosseini was born in Kabul Afghanistan in 1965. His father was a diplomat with the Afghan Foreign ministry and his mother taught Farsi and history at a large high school in Kabul. After the Soviet invasions the Hosseinis sought and were granted political asylum in the United States and in September of 1980 they moved to San Jose. Before the success of "The Kite Runner" Dr. Khaled Hosseini was practicing internist. In 2006 he was named a Goodwill Envoy to UNHCR the United Nations refugee agency. "A Thousand Splendid Suns" is his second novel. Ladies and gentlemen, Khaled Hosseini.
Khaled Hosseini: I heard people laughing.
Susanne Pari: What?
Khaled Hosseini: Thank you very much, thank you so much Susanne. I was out there and I heard one out of every ten words, I heard a lot of laughter. So I don't know if it was at my expense or not but, you know, this is my my second visit at the Book Expo. It's tremendous to be back, I owe the the Gentleman and mainly the ladies of Book Clubs, a great debt. Back when I was going to book stores for readings and meeting three or four people, you guys were in your clubs and reading my novel and passing the word around and eventually kind of where the first group that turned The Kite Runner into this kind of pop culture phenomenon that has become that has taken even me by by great surprise. So I thank you very much for reading the Kite Runner and I hope that you enjoy the second novel as well. I am going to do a short reading from this book. I am not going to read for too long, I find that the general attention span is around eight and a half minutes after which people begin thinking about whether Tony Sopranos gets whacked or not. I think he is for the record. But quickly I will set up this novel. This is a story about two women in Afghanistan, two women who are born a whole generation apart and who are very different people. The older woman is named Mariam., she is the illegitimate daughter of this kind of disgraced and embittered housemaid and this wealthy theater owner, this wealthy businessman who lives in Western Afghanistan near the City of Herat. Mariam is raised in a on the outskirts of this remote village in Western Afghanistan and grows up uneducated and timid and with very modest hopes about her life. The other women, the younger woman is named Laila, in many ways she is very different from Mariam in that she is born into this kind of middle class family. She is, you know, she goes to school, she is educated, she is ambitious, strong-willed and has expectations of both personal and professional fulfillment. So two very different characters but they find each other, they - they end up together in a household through circumstance and through the unforeseen tragedy and the turmoil in Afghanistan and they have to form a friendship, a bond that carries them through a violent and very volatile time in the recent Afghan history and they end up largely through the through this evolving friendship seeing each other through anarchy and war and extremism and worst of all the gender apartheid that was forced on Afghan women in the 90s. So I am going to read from the just a little bit past the midway point of this novel. At this point it is September of 1997, the Taliban have been in power in Afghanistan for a couple of years, in Kabul for a year, and they have banned women from virtually every hospital in Kabul, except for one. This is one of their most unpopular and loathsome decrees when they tried to centralize health care for women into one central facility. Laila, the younger woman is pregnant, in fact she is about to give birth to the baby and Mariam has brought her to this hospital for her to deliver the baby only to find out that they cannot be admitted into the hospital and I think the rest of it is pretty self explanatory so I will read this passage and then we will, I will, take your questions, comments about Kite Runner, about this novel, whatever you guys want to talk about. So September 1997, this hospital no longer treats women the guard barked. He was standing at the top of the stairs looking down icily on the crowd gathered in front of Malalai Hospital. A loud groan rose from the crowd, but this is a women's hospital, a woman shout at behind Mariam. Cries of approval followed this. Not anymore the Talib said. "But my wife is having a baby", a heavy set man yelled, "Would you have her give a birth right here on the street." Mariam had heard the announcement in January of that year, that men and women would be seen in different hospitals and that all female staff would be discharged from Kabul's hospitals and sent to work in one central facility. No one had believed it and the Taliban hadn't enforced the policy until now. What about Ali-Abad Hospital another man cried and the guard shook his head. Wazir Akbar Khan? "Men only", the guard said. What are we supposed to do? "Go to Rabiya Balkhi." A young women pushed forward and said she had already been there, they have no clean water, she said. No oxygen, no medication, no electricity, there is nothing there she said. "That's where you go", the guard said. There were more groans and cries and insult too, and some one threw a rock. The Taliban lifted his Kalaschnikov and fired rounds into the air, another Talib behind him brandished a whip. The crowd dispersed quickly. The waiting room at Rabiya Balkhi was steaming with women in burqas and their children. The air stank of sweat and unwashed bodies, of feces, urine, cigarette smoke and antiseptic. Beneath the idle ceiling fan, children chased each other harping over the stretched out legs of dosing fathers. It was dark outside and a nurse finally called them in. The delivery room had eight beds on which women mourned and twisted, tended to by fully covered nurses. Two of the women were in the act of delivering, there were no curtains between the beds. Laila was given a bed at the far ends beneath the window that someone had painted black. There was a sink nearby, cracked and dry and a string over the sink from which hung surgical gloves. In the middle of the room Mariam saw an aluminum table. The top shelf had a soot colored blanket on it, the bottom shelf was empty. One of the women saw Mariam looking, they put the live ones on top, she said tiredly. The doctor in a dark blue burqa was a small harried woman with bird like movements. Everything she said came out sounding impatient and urgent. First baby, she said it like that, not as a question but as a statement. "Second" Merriam said. Laila let out a cry and rolled on her side, and her fingers closed against Mariam's. "Any problems with the first delivery?" No. "Are you the mother?" Yes, Mariam said. At this point in the story Mariam is pretty much telling everybody that she is Laila's mother. Their relationship has kind of evolved in that manner. The doctor lifted lower half of her burqa and produced a metallic cone shaped instrument. She raised Laila's burqa and placed a white end of the instrument on her belly. The narrow end to her own ear. She listened for almost a minute, switched spots, listened again and switched spots again. I have to feel the baby now sister. She put on one of the gloves hung by a clothes spin over the sink. She pushed on Laila's belly with one hand and slit the other inside. Laila whimpered. When the doctor was done, she gave the glove to a nurse who rinsed it and pinned it back on the string. Your daughter needs a cesarean, doctor said, do you know what that is? We have to open her womb and take the baby out because it is in the breach position. "I don't understand" Mariam said. The doctor said the baby was positioned so it wouldn't come out on its own and too much time has passed as it is. We need to go to operating room now. Laila gave a grimacing nod and her head drooped from side to side. "There is something I have to tell you," the doctor said. She moved closer to Mariam, leaned in and spoke in a lower more confidential tone. There was a hint of embarrassment in her voice now. What is she saying Laila groaned "Is something wrong with the baby"? You think I wanted this way the doctor said. What do you want me to do? They won't give me what I need, I have no x-ray either. No suction, no oxygen, not even simple antibiotics. When NGOs offer money the Taliban turn him away. Or they funnel the money to places that cater to men. But doctor isn't there something that you can give, Mariam said. "What's going on?" Laila moaned. "Well you can buy the medicine yourself, but.." Write the name, Mariam said, "You write it down and I will get it." Beneath the burqa the doctor shook her head curtly, there is no time, she said. For one thing none of the nearby pharmacies have it. So you'd have to fight through the traffic from one place to the next. Maybe all the way across town with little likelihood you would ever find it. It's almost 8:30 now so you will probably get arrested for curfew. Even if you find the medicine chances are you can't afford it or you will find yourself in a bidding war with someone just as desperate. There is no time, this baby needs to come out now. Tell me what's going on, Laila said she had propped herself up on her elbows. The doctor took a breath then addressed Laila and told her that the hospital had no anesthetic but if we delay you will lose your baby. Then cut me open, Laila said. She dropped back on the bed and drew up her knees, cut me open and give me my baby. Inside the old dingy operating room, Laila lay on a gurney bed as the doctor scrubbed their hands on a basin. Laila was shivering. She drew in air through her teeth, every time the nurse wiped her belly with the cloth soaked in a yellow brown liquid. Another nurse stood at the door she kept cracking it open to take a peak outside. The doctor was out of her burqa now and Mariam saw that she had a crest of silvery hair, heavy little eyes and a little pouches of fatigue in the corners of her mouth. They want us to operate in burqa, the doctor explained, motioning with their head to the nurse at the door, she keeps watch. She sees them coming I cover. She said this in a pragmatic almost indifferent tone and Mariam understood that this was a woman far past outrage. Here was a women, she thought who had understood that she was lucky to even be working. That there was something something else that they could take away. There were two vertical metallic rods on either side of Laila's shoulders, with cloth spins the nurse would cleanse Laila's belly, pin the sheet to them. It formed the curtain between Laila and the doctor. Mariam positioned herself behind the crown of Laila's head and lowered her face so that their cheeks touched. She could feel Laila's teeth rattling, their hands locked together. Through the curtain Mariam saw the doctor's shadow move to move to Laila's left and the nurse to the right. Laila's lips had stretched all the way back, spit bubbles formed and popped on the surface of her clenched teeth. She made quick little hissing sounds. The doctor said take heart little sister. She bent over Laila. Laila's eyes snapped open and then her mouth opened and she held like this, she held and held shivering. The chords in her neck stretched sweat dripping from her face. Her fingers crushing Mariam's and Mariam would always admire Laila for how much time past before she screamed and that's the end of this chapter. So I will stop there and I see Susan coming back.
