卡勒德·鬍賽尼（Khaled Hosseini），1965年生於阿富汗喀布爾市，後隨父親遷往美國。鬍賽尼畢業於加州大學聖地亞哥醫學係，現居加州。“立誌拂去濛在阿富汗普通民眾麵孔的塵灰，將背後靈魂的悸動展示給世人。”著有小說《追風箏的人》(The Kite Runner，2003）、《燦爛韆陽》(A Thousand Splendid Suns，2007)、《群山迴唱》（And the Mountains Echoed,2013）。作品全球銷量超過4000萬冊。2006年，因其作品巨大的國際影響力，鬍賽尼獲得聯閤國人道主義奬，並受邀擔任聯閤國難民署親善大使。

《The Kite Runner(追風箏的人)》是一個阿富汗作傢的處女作，霸占瞭美國兩大權威暢銷書排行榜《紐約時報》排行榜、《齣版商周刊》排行榜長達80餘周，聲勢超過紅透全世界的丹·布朗的《達·芬奇密碼》。 這本小說太令人震撼，很長一段時日，讓我所讀的一切都相形失色。文學與生活中的所有重要主題，都交織在這部驚世之作裏：愛、恐懼、愧疚、贖罪……——著名作傢伊莎貝拉·阿連德

★一個阿富汗作傢的處女作

★一部以史詩般的曆史景觀和蕩氣迴腸的人性故事，深深地打動全世界各地億萬讀者心的文學經典

★美國《紐約時報》、《齣版商周刊》等九大暢銷書排行榜榜首圖書

★英國《觀察傢報》2005年度最佳圖書

★颱灣誠品書店、金石堂書店、博客來書店銷售冠軍

★連續80餘周雄踞《紐約時報》暢銷書排行榜，聲勢超過紅透全球的丹·布朗的《達·芬奇密碼》

“許多年過去瞭，人們說陳年舊事可以被埋葬，然而我終於明白這是錯的，因為往事會自行爬上來。迴首前塵，我意識到在過去二十六年裏，自己始終在窺視著那荒蕪的小徑。”

《華盛頓郵報》認為：“沒有虛矯贅文，沒有無病呻吟，隻有精煉的篇章，細膩勾勒傢庭與友誼，背叛與救贖。作者對祖國的愛顯然與對造成它今日滄桑的恨一樣深。故事娓娓道來，輕筆淡描，近似川端康成的《韆羽鶴》。”

12歲的阿富汗富傢少爺阿米爾與僕人哈桑情同手足。然而，在一場風箏比賽後，發生瞭一件悲慘不堪的事，阿米爾為自己的懦弱感到自責和痛苦，逼走瞭哈桑，不久，自己也跟隨父親逃往美國。

成年後的阿米爾始終無法原諒自己當年對哈桑的背叛。為瞭贖罪，阿米爾再度踏上暌違二十多年的故鄉，希望能為不幸的好友盡最後一點心力，卻發現一個驚天謊言，兒時的噩夢再度重演，阿米爾該如何抉擇？

小說如此殘忍而又美麗，作者以溫暖細膩的筆法勾勒人性的本質與救贖，讀來令人蕩氣迴腸。

Book Description

This is a wonderful, beautiful epic of a novel. Set in Afghanistan and the United States between the 1970s to the present day, it is a heartbreaking tale of a young boy, Amir, and his best friend who are torn apart. This is a classic word-of-mouth novel and is sure to become as universally loved as The God of Small Things and The Glass Palace.

Twelve year old Amir is desperate to win the approval of his father Baba, one of the richest and most respected merchants in Kabul. He has failed to do so through academia or brawn, but the one area where they connect is the annual kite fighting tournament. Amir is determined not just to win the competition but to run the last kite and bring it home triumphantly, to prove to his father that he has the makings of a man. His loyal friend Hassan is the best kite runner that Amir has ever seen, and he promises to help him - for Hassan always helps Amir out of trouble. But Hassan is a Shi'a Muslim and this is 1970s Afghanistan. Hassan is taunted and jeered at by Amir's school friends; he is merely a servant living in a shack at the back of Amir's house. So why does Amir feel such envy towards his friend? Then, what happens to Hassan on the afternoon of the tournament is to shatter all their lives, and define their futures.

Amazon.co.uk Review

The Kite Runner of Khaled Hosseini's deeply moving fiction debut is an illiterate Afghan boy with an uncanny instinct for predicting exactly where a downed kite will land. Growing up in the city of Kabul in the early 1970s, Hassan was narrator Amir's closest friend even though the loyal 11-year-old with "a face like a Chinese doll" was the son of Amir's father's servant and a member of Afghanistan's despised Hazara minority. But in 1975, on the day of Kabul's annual kite-fighting tournament, something unspeakable happened between the two boys.

Narrated by Amir, a 40-year-old novelist living in California, The Kite Runner tells the gripping story of a boyhood friendship destroyed by jealousy, fear, and the kind of ruthless evil that transcends mere politics. Running parallel to this personal narrative of loss and redemption is the story of modern Afghanistan and of Amir's equally guilt-ridden relationship with the war-torn city of his birth. The first Afghan novel to be written in English, The Kite Runner begins in the final days of King Zahir Shah's 40-year reign and traces the country's fall from a secluded oasis to a tank-strewn battlefield controlled by the Russians and then the trigger-happy Taliban. When Amir returns to Kabul to rescue Hassan's orphaned child, the personal and the political get tangled together in a plot that is as suspenseful as it is taut with feeling.

The son of an Afghan diplomat whose family received political asylum in the United States in 1980, Hosseini combines the unflinching realism of a war correspondent with the satisfying emotional pull of master storytellers such as Rohinton Mistry. Like the kite that is its central image, the story line of this mesmerizing first novel occasionally dips and seems almost to dive to the ground. But Hosseini ultimately keeps everything airborne until his heartrending conclusion in an American picnic park.

　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　　--Lisa Alward, Amazon.ca

Book Dimension :

length: (cm)17.8 　　　 　　　　　 　　　　　 width:(cm)11.1