“And suddenly Hassan’s voice whispered in my head: For you, a thousand times over” (Hosseini 2).Khaled Hosseini’s powerful and impacting fictional book, The Kite Runner, has opened the eyes of millions of readers around the world. In the most realistic way, he integrated a portion of his life into a book that has become an international bestseller and beloved classic, and it is sold in at least seventy countries. Hosseini was born in Kabul, Afghanistan in a family whose father was a diplomat in the Afghan Foreign Ministry, mother who taught Farsi and history at a high school in Kabul, and a Hazara man who worked for his family for a couple of years. The Foreign Ministry then moved the Hosseini family to Paris, but when they were ready to return back to Kabul, there was a bloody communist coup and an invasion by the Soviet Army.
While practicing medicine as an internist, Khaled Hosseini wrote The Kite Runner, which encompassed the extraordinary life of a Pashtun boy, named Amir, who transformed from being selfish to being a mature, selfless, and redeemed man. The book was introduced with a haunting flashback memory that dated back twenty-seven years ago from the mid-1970s to the early 2000s. One day Amir received a phone call from Rahim Khan, an old friend, telling him “here is a way to be good again” (Hosseini 2). Tragic, dramatic, and regretful sins that have been hidden in the depths of Amir’s guilty heart, led him to search for redemption. However, did Amir really want to help himself?Amir grew up in a wealthy house with a complicated past: a mother who died giving birth to him, a family servant’s son, Hassan, who turned out to be his one and only loyal friend, and a father, Baba, who favored Hassan more openly than h. .
ped up. It was not until Amir was suffocating with these haunting memories had he searched for redemption. Amir owed his life to Hassan, but since he is not physically alive, he dedicated his life in taking care of Sohrab. The symbolism of the scar left on Amir’s lip after the fight with Assef, signifies that the memories of Hassan are still there, but the guilt is slowly being relieved and forgiven. The road to redemption was taken on a personal level being put “in the shoes of characters who are radically different than they are” (qtd. in Milvy).
The way Amir treated Hassan was due to their social class difference as well as for Amir’s immaturity. It was after realizing all the cruel deeds he had done was the time for Amir to repay, to forgive, and to find redemption. “And that, I believe, is what true redemption is, when guilt leads to good” (Hosseini 302).
