Historically, medicine and literature have maintained undeniable ties that ended up narrowing the destinies of many of those who sought, in the most anthropological science, answers from the physiological to the mental or spiritual. Khaled hosseini is one more in the extensive list of medical writers.
This coincidence is not a trivial matter since we speak of great storytellers like Pio Baroja, Chekhov, Connan doyle Or until Robin cook arriving at a more current time and closer to the author that today I bring to this blog.
These and many others found in their natural search for knowledge of the human, a spring on which to lean to probe any space in which innate concerns or ideas that are taking shape as narratives of all kinds are projected. The letter of doctor finally acquires a more complete meaning in literature as a space to dump all kinds of stories.
A medical writer can become an almost existentialist narrator like PÃo Baroja, a transcendental storyteller of universal literature like Chejov or a pioneer of the detective, investigative and criminal novel like Connan Doyle.
In Hosseini's case, his humanity, his ability to transmute the anecdotal into the fundamental, and the emotional flare of his characters, suddenly made him a world-renowned writer.
Despite your American nationality, Hosseini always dives into his Afghan origins to soak up the reality of a country made universal in those intrahistories that explain more than the news say.
The human condition shares essential similarities here and there, Hosseini's magical ability is to rescue those impressions to end up empathizing with characters who seek their fortune in a corner of the world where being born is unfortunate.
Top 3 Recommended Novels by Khaled Hosseini
Kites in the sky
Figures such as fatherhood or deep friendship acquire an essential value until childhood. And yet no one is free to betray a parent or friend.
Everything takes place in a city of Kabul that in the winter of 1975 lives between the numbness of the cold and the hope of a seasonal and social spring that offers life and hope. Amir is a fortunate child in the shelter of a well-regarded family in the narrow society of the Afghan capital, with its rigid principles and marked stratification.
Hassan is that inseparable friend, the extension of the invisible friend from early childhood with whom attunement acquires the value of the passage to adulthood, a period in which the essence of our social being is forged. And yet Amir becomes able to betray Hassan.
Put in the position of being able to show his father his great worth, Amir ends up taking advantage of that friend over whom he maintains a certain social pre-eminence. Kabul fills with kites every year.
Each child tries to build the one that flies the best, but the flight of Amir's kite will move between currents of air tainted by his betrayal, hissing for many years to come with the weight of remorse.
A thousand splendid suns
Although it is true that Hosseini's later work always starts from the debt with the first exceptional work, the quality of his novelistic production is not negligible at all.
On this second occasion we find a story on the other side of Afghanistan, in a city like Herat, still able to take off with prosperity and hope despite its tangible memories of endless conflicts.
There we live between Mariam and Laila, two women of crossed destinies under the protection of Rashid, forced husband of the first and protector of the second.
The restrictive environment of the feminine becomes the scene of the narrative on which one of those wonderful friendships arisen from adversity takes shape.
The souls of Mariam and Laila join forces to face fears, feelings of guilt, dark omens and a slight need for hope that also unites the soul of the reader.
And the mountains spoke
Read the two previous books or any of them, this third novel (in my particular ranking of quality) abounds in the overflowing humanity in the face of adversity, in contrast to a western world devoid of shared sensations and bent on alienating individualism.
Precisely that, the contrast with what we are on this side of the planet, serves for greater pleasure in reading this type of story. The father of two children, Sabul, tells Abdullah and Pari a sadly true tale leading them to a dream of looming winter in a deep Afghanistan settlement.
Shortly after, they will go to Kabul to try to carve out a future at all costs, or rather to survive ... What awaits them in the big city is a traumatic change in the family nucleus that can drive them away forever.
The years will pass but the memories remain intense. And who they are in the future will try to find their childhood ties in a future in which they need to collect answers ...
