It’s not hard to understand why Hosseini’s first novel, “The Kite Runner” (2003) became a very huge best seller, based largely on word of mouth and its popularity among book readers. The novel was like a kind of modern-day variation on Conrad’s “Lord Jim” in which the hero spends his life atoning for an act of cowardice and betrayal committed in his teen age. It not only gave readers an intimate look at Afghanistan and the problems of life there, but it also tells its author’s accessible and very old-fashioned storytelling talents, his taste for melodramatic writting sharply drawn, the different characters and elemental boldfaced emotions.
