Khaled Hosseini was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, and moved to the United States in 1980. He is the author of the New York Times bestsellers The Kite Runner, A Thousand Splendid Suns, and And the Mountains Echoed. He is A U.S. Goodwill Envoy to the United Nations Refugee Agency, and the founder of The Khaled Hosseini Foundation, a nonprofit that provides humanitarian assistance to the people of Afghanistan.
“[Hosseini’s] most assured and emotionally gripping story yet . . .
Hosseini’s narrative gifts have deepened over the years. . . . [And
the Mountains Echoed] grapples with many of the same themes that
crisscross his early novels: the relationship between parents and
children, and the ways the past can haunt the present. And it
shares a similar penchant for mapping terrain midway between the
boldly colored world of fable and the more shadowy, shaded world of
realism… [W]e finish this novel with an intimate understanding of
who his characters are and how they’ve defined themselves over the
years through the choices they have made between duty and freedom,
familial responsibilities and independence, loyalty to home and
exile abroad… a deeply affecting choral work… a testament both to
his intimate knowledge of their inner lives, and to his power as an
old-fashioned storyteller. ”—Michiko Kakutani, The New York
Times
“The Kite Runner author’s latest is a moving saga about sacrifice,
betrayal, and the power of family. . . . More expansive than The
Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, the novel spans three
generations and includes overlapping tales of expatriates and aid
workers, parents and children, doctors and drug lords. Hosseini
shows how easy it is for people to brutalize or abandon those they
should protect. But his ultimate achievement is demonstrating the
power and persistence of family.”—People (4 stars)
“[Hosseini’s] beautifully written, masterfully crafted new book,
And the Mountains Echoed, spans nearly 60 years of Afghan history
as it investigates the consequences of a desperate act that scars
two young lives and resonates through many others. . . . And the
Mountains Echoed is painfully sad but also radiant with love: the
enduring bond of a brother and sister; the irritable but bedrock
connection of cousins; the quiet intimacy of master and servant who
become friends; the commitment of a doctor and nurse to war's
victims. To underscore love's centrality and contingency, Hosseini
closes with an image drawn from a dream: a snapshot of bygone
happiness all the more precious in retrospect because we know how
fragile it is.”—Los Angles Times
“And the Mountains Echoed opens like a thunderclap. . . .
[Hosseini] asks good, hard questions about the limits of love. . .
. Love, Hosseini seems to say, is the great leveler, cutting
through language, class, and identity. No one in this
gripping novel is immune to its impact.”—O, the Oprah Magazine
“With his third and most ambitious novel yet, Hosseini makes it
clear that he's not ready to rest on his Big Name. . . . While it
hits all the Hosseini sweet spots—nostalgia, devastating details,
triumph over the odds—And the Mountains Echoed covers more ground,
both geographically and emotionally, than his previous works. It's
not until Hosseini makes the novel small again, for the poignant
conclusion, that you fully appreciate what he's
accomplished.”—Entertainment Weekly (A)
“I’m not an easy touch when it comes to novels, but Hosseini’s new
book, And the Mountains Echoed, had tears dropping from my eyes by
Page 45. . . . It’s hard to do justice to a novel this rich in a
short review. There are a dozen things I still want to say — about
the rhyming pairs of characters, the echoing situations, the varied
takes on honesty, loneliness, beauty and poverty, the
transformation of emotions into physical ailments. Instead, I’ll
just add this: Send Hosseini up the bestseller list
again.”—Washington Post
"The genius of Khaled Hosseini's novels—including his best-selling
The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, as well as his
latest, the masterly And the Mountains Echoed—is that they pull off
the neat trick of embodying and transcending the essence of a
place. . . . This is an exquisite novel, a must-read for anyone
with an interest in what it means to be alive, anywhere and
everywhere."—USA Today
“There is an assured, charismatic new maturity to Hosseini's voice.
When he hits his stride, the results are electrifying.”—San
Francico Chronicle
“Hosseini delves into the joys, sorrows, and betrayals that
alternately bind and fracture families. Once again, Hosseini’s
lovingly rendered Afghanistan takes center stage, but in this book
he extends his examination to encompass how the Afghan identity
affects his characters’ decisions and lives in unfamiliar
environments.”—Boston Globe
“Compulsively readable, in large part because [Hosseini] probes his
characters’ psyches in a nuanced and poetic manner . . . And the
Mountains Echoed attains a greater level of complexity than its two
predecessors . . . and signals the ongoing maturation of a gifted
storyteller.”—The Miami Herald
“Hosseini . . . is back with his beautiful, often harrowing third
novel, And the Mountains Echoed.”—Chicago Tribune
“My main goal in reading Khaled Hosseini’s new book, And the
Mountains Echoed, was to avoid crying. I failed within the first 20
pages. And by the last page, I was bawling. So, yes, much like
Hosseini’s earlier works, The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid
Suns, his latest book is bathed in sadness and despair, with the
requisite occasional ray of hope. Much like those other two books,
And the Mountains Echoed is powerful and haunting. And much like
the country it describes, it is not easy to forget. . . . You won’t
be able to put it down. To those readers who manage to get through
it without shedding a tear, well, I tip my hat.”—Associated
Press
“Wrought with mastery, And the Mountains Echoed is not just a well
spun tale, but an accomplishment of the most elusive of literary
challenges—the humanization of a war ravaged population in the eyes
of the very people complicit in their ruin.”—Daily Beast
“Haunting.”—Houston Chronicle
“The story that Khaled Hosseini tells in And the Mountains Echoed
is one of loss and love—in that order. At its heart, this tale
spells out what happens when a brother and sister are torn apart as
children—a father’s choice to do what he hopes is the right thing.
. . . Hosseini masterfully moves the story between Afghanistan and
Paris, with side trips to the United States and Greece. . . . It’s
only toward the end of this beautiful tale of family that Hosseini
reveals more about Abdullah, still devoted to his long-gone sister
and still, somehow, hoping they will be reunited. ‘ “She was
perfect,” he would say.’ The same might be said of this novel. It’s
nearly perfect just as it is.”—St. Louis Post Dispatch
“Transports you whole into the otherworldly realms Hosseini builds
in Kabul, Paris, San Francisco, and the Greek islands. . . .
There's something primary and beautiful about the simple desire to
get lost in a story, and Hosseini is an expert manufacturer of that
experience.”—Harper’s Bazaar
“Sprawling family saga.”—Vanity Fair
“Ambitiously expansive.”—Vogue
“Like a sculptor working in a soft medium, [Hosseini] gently molds
and shapes individual pieces that ultimately fit together in a
major work. . . . Family matters in ways small and large in this
novel. Whether or not the connections are visible, they exist
nevertheless. Hosseini seems to be telling us that the way we care
is who we are and, ultimately, the face we show to life.”—New York
Daily News
"Readers' tears may fall by first chapter's end . . . Introspective
and perfectly paced, Hosseini's microcosmic plot spares no expense
with sensory details. Each character . . . captivates. Hosseini
skillfully weaves the tapestry with universal elements: human
fallibility, innate goodness, perseverance, forgiveness, sexuality,
jealousy, companionship, and joy. Yet his words are never
sugarcoated: The brutality of life is on display, and people are
shown just as they are, for better or worse. Poverty and gender
roles leave scars, while shifting points of view reveal Hosseini's
prism of truth. The heartbreaks are not intended for shock value,
but they do linger. And the Mountains Echoed resonates to the
core.”—Austin Chronicle
“Like [Hosseini’s] previous books, the new novel is a complex
mosaic, a portrait of the Afghan diaspora as it is folded into the
West and of those left behind. . . . The book is elevated by a
strong sense of parable and some finely drawn characters and is
inventively constructed as it leaps from voice to
voice.”—Esquire
“Early reviews are in and they’ve confirmed what we’ve known all
along: Khaled Hosseini’s latest novel, And the Mountains
Echoed, is a hit. It’s also a surprisingly nuanced, morally
complex, exquisitely told tear-jerker.”—Christian Science
Monitor
“Hosseini returns with an instantly relatable novel that follows
generations of a troubled family across the Middle East.”—Marie
Claire
“The beautiful writing, full of universal truths of loss and
identity, makes each section a jewel . . . Hosseini’s eye for
detail and emotional geography makes this a haunting
read.”—Publishers Weekly
“Captivating and affecting . . . A masterful and compassionate
storyteller, Hosseini traces the traumas and scarring of tyranny,
war, crime, lies, and illness in the intricately interconnected,
heartbreaking, and transcendent lives of his vibrantly realized
characters to create a grand and encompassing tree of
life.”—Booklist (starred review)
“Hosseini weaves a gorgeous tapestry of disparate characters joined
by threads of blood and fate. . . . In this uplifting and deeply
satisfying book, Hosseini displays an optimism not so obvious in
his previous works. Readers will be clamoring for it.”—Library
Journal (starred review)
“In And the Mountains Echoed, Khaled Hosseini presents a multitude
of windows into the souls affected by these events. The novel's
rich kaleidoscope of images coalesces around one theme: the
powerful and often excruciating legacy of family ties within the
maelstrom of history.”—Shelf Awareness
“Fiction Top Pick . . . Engrossing . . . Ultimately, And the
Mountains Echoed is about the human endeavor to transcend
difference.”—Bookpage
And the Mountains Echoed, is a hit. It’s also a surprisingly
nuanced, morally complex, exquisitely told tear-jerker.”—Christian
Science Monitor
“The beautiful writing, full of universal truths of loss and
identity, makes each section a jewel . . . Hosseini’s eye for
detail and emotional geography makes this a haunting
read.”—Publishers Weekly
“Captivating and affecting . . . A masterful and compassionate
storyteller, Hosseini traces the traumas and scarring of tyranny,
war, crime, lies, and illness in the intricately interconnected,
heartbreaking, and transcendent lives of his vibrantly realized
characters to create a grand and encompassing tree of
life.”—Booklist (starred review)
“Hosseini weaves a gorgeous tapestry of disparate characters joined
by threads of blood and fate. . . . In this uplifting and deeply
satisfying book, Hosseini displays an optimism not so obvious in
his previous works. Readers will be clamoring for it.”—Library
Journal (starred review)
“In And the Mountains Echoed, Khaled Hosseini presents a multitude
of windows into the souls affected by these events. The novel's
rich kaleidoscope of images coalesces around one theme: the
powerful and often excruciating legacy of family ties within the
maelstrom of history.”—Shelf Awareness
“Fiction Top Pick . . . Engrossing . . . Ultimately, And the
Mountains Echoed is about the human endeavor to transcend
difference.”—Bookpage
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