Khaled Hosseini - The Kite Runner

With James Naughtie.

Khaled Hosseini talks about his global bestselling novel, The Kite Runner with a group of invited readers.

The book describes how the happiness of an afternoon's kite flying competition in late-1970s Kabul is broken when young Amir fails to help his best friend Hassan avoid a terrible incident. The effects on the duo's friendship are devastating. Over 20 years later, Amir returns to Afghanistan from America, determined to redeem himself.

Khaled Hosseini explains the unequal relationship between the two boys that lies at the heart of the novel, and how the reader has a sense of dread and impending catastrophe as the story develops. He says that although the West has a view of Afghanistan as a violent culture, he remembers that for most of the twentieth century, Afghanistan was a peaceful place, and that the West has exoticised Afghans as being 'warrior' like.

March's Bookclub choice : Disobedience (2006) by Naomi Alderman

Producer : Dymphna Flynn.