Book review: A Thousand Splendid Suns

A disturbing yet incredibly compelling read, A Thousand Splendid Suns follows the life of two women living in Afghanistan during the changing landscape and atrocities of war. We first met Mariam who is an illegitimate child living on the outskirts of Herat where her father comes to visit weekly. Never allowed to interact with his real family we see a young girl idolising her father while her mother tries to instill in Mariam that she will never be welcomed as a legitimate daughter. The realisation eventually comes when Mariam is sent away by her father and married off to a much older man, Rasheed, living in Kabul. When she fails to provide him with a son he takes a younger wife, Laila. The book follows the lives of Mariam and Laila as their friendship forms and strengthens as they do the best they can trying to survive a country at war and a brutal life at home.

The story of these women are so far outside the realm of my reality or the comprehension of their lifestyle yet it is so well written that they become familiar to you.

What amazed me about the characters is the incredible endurance through all the situations thrown at them. I still haven’t finished mulling over this book as yet and figuring out what I have taken away from it.