Event
Khaled Hosseini, will sign copies of his new book “And the Mountains Echoed” at 12:30 p.m. Thursday at the Barnes & Noble Buckhead, 2900 Peachtree Road N.E. and at 7 p.m. at Georgia Center for the Book program at Decatur First Baptist Church, 308 Clairmont Ave. Doors open at 6 p.m. and seating will be on a first-come basis.
Both events are free and open to the public.
In his third novel, “And the Mountains Echoed,” Khaled Hosseini has no trouble getting readers to connect with the central characters and the relationships that bind - or deeply wound.
There’s love, betrayal and healing spanning generations, families, geography and cultures.
The book explores how one event can have long-lasting consequences and touch the lives of many people, said Hosseini in a telephone interview.
Hosseini’s first novel, “The Kite Runner,” was an international breakaway hit and was eventually made into a movie. His second, “A Thousand Splendid Suns,” was also successful.
Hosseini will be in Atlanta Thursday at to sign copies of his new book at 12:30 p.m. at the Barnes & Noble Buckhead, 2900 Peachtree Road N.E. and at 7 p.m. at Georgia Center for the Book program at Decatur First Baptist Church, 308 Clairmont Ave. Doors open at 6 p.m. and seating will be on a first-come basis.
“And the Mountains Echoed” opens with a father, Saboor, telling a story about a farmer who must give his youngest and favorite child to a red-eyed mythological creature. Later the tale comes to life in a disturbing way when Saboor allows his young daughter, Pari, to be adopted by a wealthy family in Kabul, arranged by their Uncle Nabi. The act devastates her devoted older brother, Abdullah who lives for years with that betrayal.
That’s just one of the stories in the moving book.
A physician in his pre-successful novelist life, Hosseini hasn’t practiced medicine in years and he doesn’t miss it much at all.
“Well, I really like what I do,” he said. “I love writing and it makes it hard to miss that other life.”
He usually writes in a room in his home that has been converted to an office. He drops off his children at school then comes back to spend hours being a master weaver of stories until its time to be daddy again.
The richly developed characters are loosely based on people he knows.
“It’s impossible to write in a complete vacuum,” he said. “You have to kind of dip into your personal experiences to create them (characters). You have to rely on your experiences and things you’ve seen and heard.”
The title of his latest novel is inspired by a line in a poem by William Blake although he admits he doesn't read much Western poetry.
“I found it evocative and it kind of touched on all the themes in the book with events early in life echoing forward across time and space,” he said.
Like his other novels, the story takes place in his native Afghanistan, which Hosseini’s family left when he was young. Unlike his other novels, it doesn’t stay there. It moves West and to an island in Greece.
Hosseini has returned to Afghanistan several times and he feels strongly about the nation’s future. He wants to see a strong Afghanistan at peace where education and opportunity is available to everyone. He wants to avoid a return to the strife that led to the rise of the Taliban.
He doesn’t think readers pick up his books to learn about Afghanistan.
“I think people come to my books to read a good story that lets them connect on a human level with the characters,” he said. And if they learn a bit about the land of his birth, that’s not such a bad thing either. Perhaps they can see as more than just a “land of suicide bombers. It has a rich heritage, rich ancestry and rich culture. People inhabiting that land have the same desired and hopes that reflect that of the reader.”
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