Khaled Hosseini, an internationally known fiction writer, visited Fairfield as a guest speaker of the University’s Open Visions Forum last Thursday to discuss his books and how to better the lives of the Afghanistan people.
Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, spoke to the sold-out audience about how the people of Afghanistan were being directly affected by the war that has ravaged across the nation for years. He believes that his books have served as examples of what Afghanistani men and women have experienced.
“I hope people will give empathy to the Afghanistan people and realize that these are real people living real lives in a real world crushed by war, ” said Hosseini.
Hosseini talked about writing The Kite Runner while practicing medicine, and how it felt to see his art imitated in real life when he visited the city of Kabul after writing the novel.
“The Afghans I met were living in very poor conditions,” said Housseini. He described seeing refugees who fled for their lives living on less than one dollar a day with a lack of clean water, education, and shelter.
“Nothing broke my heart more than seeing these refugees living in the middle of the desert,” said Housseini. He hopes that his readers have a better understanding of the Afghan people so that they can know how to help, he said.
Hosseini discussed how military assistance in Afghanistan is not enough, and that counter insurgency needs more humane efforts. According to Hosseini, poverty is what kills more Afghans than the war, causing the poorest people with nowhere to go to turn towards the radicals. He believes that the root of the country’s issues are economic, and that it will take time to rebuild the country, possibly one or two generations will have to pass.
“If we want to turn Afghanistan around, it is not 100 yard dash; it’s a marathon,” he said.
Hosseini moved to the United States after his family was granted political asylum in 1980 when his homeland Afghanistan was invaded by the Soviet Union. His father was a diplomat for the Afghan Foreign Ministry, so the Hosseini family was in Paris at the time of the invasion. They moved to California where he graduated form the University of California-San Diego’s school of medicine earning his medical degree in 1993.
He completed The Kite Runner in 2001, and it was published in 2003, becoming an international bestseller that was published in 48 countries. His second novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns, was published in 2007 in 40 countries.
“I never expected to one day flip the channel and find myself to be the answer to an array of questions,” said Hosseini.
Hosseini impressed his audience with not only his knowledge and talent as a writer, but also with his humanitarian efforts. Hosseini founded the Khaled Hosseini Foundation which builds homes and shelters for those who have nowhere to go. The foundation also supports non-profit groups that support the betterment of women and children.
“I feel that all that he has done and all that he is capable of doing is essential in giving light to the Afghanistan culture,” says Julio Gomez ’12, a student in the Gateway to Literary and Cultural Studies class.
Others viewed his position as an American vouching for the Afghan people to be interesting, brave and inspiring.
“From where he’s sitting, he’s got the best position to promote his people and the situation going on there and he’s doing a great job,” said Vincent Ferrer ’12. Some even considered his visit to be the best program to be seen in the Open Visions Forum due to the insight that they’ve received.
“We need to know what’s going on [in Afghanistan], and he’s someone who can tell us,” said Sally O’Driscoll, a professor in the English department. “Plus, it’s a great book.”
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