Writer Seminar 2019

Writer Seminar 2019

 

Introduction: About Us and Our Chosen NovelImage result for a thousand splendid suns

Sadia Amin

Kshef Kamran

A Thousand Splendid Suns By Khaled Hosseini

 

Style Of The Novels: Which genres has the writer written in professionally? Which genre is most noteworthy/ recognized with the writer?

 

  • To date, Hosseini has written three major novels: The Kite Runner, A Thousand Splendid Suns, and And The Mountains Echoed.
  • The genre that he has written in is fiction, however, it contains many issues of history, injustice in many aspects of life, living in a war infested country, and family politics
  • Being settled in the United States, happily married, and ready to start a family did not make Hosseini forget his roots.
  • Recalling his early upbringing in the capital of Kabul where the women and men were equal, he remembered it as cultivated and civilized. He longed to share a story that described these prior successes of his country before the Taliban seized control and seemed to destroy all of it.

 

About The Author: What biographical information about the writer is relevant to their writing?

 

  • Born in 1965 in the capital city of Kabul, he lived there until 1976 when his father’s employer, the Afghan Foreign Ministry, relocated the family to Paris, France.
  • Similar to Pari who goes to France in And The Mountains Echoed
  • In 1980, after the Soviets invaded Afghanistan, Hosseini’s father applied for political asylum in the United States and the family relocated to San Jose, California.
  • After 11 years in Afghanistan and four years in Paris, 15-year-old Khaled was in America for the first time.
  • Speaking virtually no English, there were many adjustments to come for Khaled, not only in terms of the language and cultural barriers but the major shift of being in an affluent family to living off of welfare with other Afghan refugees.
  • Being the oldest of his siblings, he was determined to be successful and worked hard to understand the language.
  • Deeply inspired by The Grapes of Wrath, his first book in English, he began writing stories of his own in English. After high school, he headed to Santa Clara College to study biology, which, after graduating in 1988, set him up perfectly for his next step of attending the University of California’s School of Medicine where he earned his medical degree.
  • Similar to Idris in And The Mountains Echoed
  • Moving on to a medical internship in 1996, he was well on his way to becoming a doctor.
  • In 2001, he began his first book, The Kite Runner by writing every morning at 4 a.m. before seeing his daily patients. Eventually, he decided to give up practicing medicine in order to continue writing and pursue his passion of working with the United Nations to help support refugees.

 

More About The Author: Who/ what has been the greatest influences on the writer?

 

Having an Afghani background, Hosseini generally writes his tales from the perspective of prewar, wartime, and postwar Afghanis. For his novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns, Hosseini visited Afghanistan and spoke to women with experiences that inspired the characters of Mariam Jo and Laila. “I was speaking to them [the women] just to learn about what had happened in my country … [the main character in the novel] were based on the collective spirit of all the women that I met in Kabul in the spring.” He was also raised in a rich lifestyle before the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan and was encouraged to write as young as 7 years old.

 

A video that includes the writer’s influence

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4kyalTT_wY

 

**Up until the 2: 00-minute mark**

 

Authors Style: What stylistic techniques is the writer known for?

 

  • The writing style of Khaled Hosseini in A Thousand Splendid Suns is both sympathetic and disgusted. He feels pity on those that bear the burden of the war. He shows this mostly through the use of two major literary devices: Symbolism and Imagery.
  • These two literary devices impact the reader because it gives a deeper insight and understanding of the pain and fear these characters were forced into dealing with every day.
  • An example of how Hosseini feels disgusted and sympathetic is when one of the main characters, Mariam Jo, is forced to go live with her father after her mother’s untimely death on page 36, “suddenly he was standing in front of her, trying to cover her eyes, pushing her back the way they had come saying ‘Go back!

 

Type Of Writing: What themes is the writer known for?

 

Hosseini illustrates a wide variety of themes in each of his books. Generally, he uses the same ones repeatedly, so each book has its own plot while reflecting his distinctive style. It gives the reader a, ‘THIS is definitely a Khaled Hosseini style of book. He highlights:

  • Love and Relationships

Talk about finding love in a hopeless place. The characters of A Thousand Splendid Suns are wounded in wars, stuck in abusive relationships, and rejected by their families. They have to struggle every day to survive. How do they get through it? It’s simple

  • Betrayal
  • Hatred
  • Warfare

A Thousand Splendid Suns is defined by war, but that doesn’t mean it has to like it. The novel does not shy from showing you the horrible reality of war and its effect on regular people, but it’s not a hopeless tale. Instead, it’s concerned with how people manage to endure despite the horrors that surround them. War is tough, sure, but people are tougher.

  • Hierarchy of social class/gender patriarchy

If there’s one subject that A Thousand Splendid Suns focuses on, it’s the nature of women. Laila and Mariam live through a rough period for women’s rights in Afghanistan. They’re controlled by the government, treated as property by their husbands, and forbidden from taking part in society. Yet, through their strength and resilience, the two women are able to overcome these obstacles. It might not always be pretty, but that’s the point. The women in the novel aren’t like Princess Peach waiting for their Mario—they’re incredibly tough women trying to take control of their own lives.

  • Injustice
  • Family

Nobody loves his or her family all of the time. That’s just a fact of life. Despite this, A Thousand Splendid Suns suggests that there’s no one more important than your family. The novel also suggests that the concept of “family” extends beyond blood relatives. Think about how Mariam and Laila develop a mother-daughter relationship, or think about the bond between Tariq and Zalmai that begins to grow at the end of the novel. Sometimes family is your blood, and sometimes it isn’t—but your family, however you define it, is always at the center of your life.

 

Future Writers: What advice does the writer have for us as writers?

 

“Even my finished books are approximations of what I intended to do. I try to narrow the gap, as much as I possibly can, between what I wanted to say and what’s actually on the page. But there’s still a gap, there always is. It’s very, very difficult…But that’s what art is for—for both reader and writer to overcome their respective limitations and encounter something true. It seems miraculous, doesn’t it? That somebody can articulate something clearly and beautifully that exists inside you…Great art reaches through the fog, towards this secret heart—and it shows it to you, holds it before you. It’s a revelatory, incredibly moving experience when this happens. You feel understood. You feel heard. That’s why we come to art—we feel less alone. We are less alone.”

 

A video that includes advice https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2oWstZMSMVo  

 

Quote  

        

Analyzing this quote

I.)“Mariam lay on the couch, hands tucked between her knees, watched the whirlpool of snow twisting and spinning outside the window. She remembered Nana saying once that each snowflake was a sigh heaved by an aggrieved woman somewhere in the world. That all the sighs drifted up the sky, gathered into clouds, then broke into tiny pieces that fell silently on the people below. As a reminder of how people like us suffer, she’d said. How quietly we endure all that falls upon us.”

Emulating this quote

II.) “With the passing of time, she would slowly tire of this exercise. She would find it increasingly exhausting to conjure up, to dust off, to resuscitate once again what was long dead. There would come a day, in fact, years later, when [she] would no longer bewail his loss. Or not as relentlessly; not nearly. There would come a day when the details of his face would begin to slip from memory’s grip when overhearing a mother on the street called after her child by [his] name would no longer cut her adrift. She would not miss him as she did now when the ache of his absence was her unremitting companion–like the phantom pain of an amputee.”  

My Emulation

His features, his personality, his reactions she tried and tried to hold on to those final fragments.

With the passing of time she would slowly tire of this exercise.

She would no longer be cut adrift at the sight of a mother ever so gently nurturing her child so, she wants to believe.

Her heart is filled with hope that there would not come a day when the memories of her deceased son are not as strong not nearly.

However, she was a mother  asking her to forget her deceased son was like asking a baby to run a marathon, it was just that impossible.

The truth she would always cling on to those memories with some false belief that if she held them long enough some how he would be returned to her good as new.

She can remember seeing the ever so slow rise of his chest tears pouring out of her eyes and then she saw as the short life was sucked right out of him.

Brought back to reality she took a step on to the chair gently pulling her hair to one side to make room for the noose then she stepped off of her chair-

She joined her son.

                

Information:

Fassler, J. (2019). How to Write: A Year in Advice from Franzen, King, Hosseini, and More. Retrieved from https://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/12/how-to-write-a-year-in-advice-from-franzen-king-hosseini-and-more/282445/

Khaled Hosseini: Biography, Books & Awards | Study.com. (2019). Retrieved from https://study.com/academy/lesson/khaled-hosseini-biography-books-awards.html

Shmoop Editorial Team. (2008, November 11). A Thousand Splendid Suns Themes. Retrieved April 14, 2019, from https://www.shmoop.com/a-thousand-splendid-suns/themes.html

Devdhat, V. (2019). Powerful Themes to Appreciate in Khaled Hosseini’s Novels. Retrieved from https://booksrockmyworld.com/2017/05/17/powerful-themes-to-appreciate-in-khaled-hosseinis-novels/

Digital Images:

(2019). [Image]. Retrieved from http://writeplayrepeat.com/2011/04/14/stop-buying-beautiful-journals/

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