Why He's No. 99

When Khaled Hosseini was in third grade, he taught Khan to read and write. Although his relationship with Hossein Khan was brief and rather formal, Hosseini's fond memories of this relationship served as an inspiration for the relationship between Hassan and Amir in The Kite Runner.

Back Stage

Hosseini was born in Kabul where his father worked for the Afghanistan Foreign Ministry. In 1970, Hosseini and his family moved to Tehran, Iran, where his father worked for the Embassy of Afghanistan. In 1973, Hosseini's family returned to Kabul, and Hosseini's youngest brother was born in July of that year.



In 1976, Hosseini's father obtained a job in Paris, France and moved the family there. They chose not to return to Afghanistan because PDPA had seized power through a bloody coup in April 1978. Instead, in 1980 they sought political asylum in the United States and made their residence in Fremont, California.



Hosseini graduated from Independence High School in San Jose in 1984 and enrolled at Santa Clara University, where he earned a bachelor's degree in biology in 1988. The following year, he entered the University of California, San Diego, School of Medicine, where he earned his M.D. in 1993. He completed his residency in internal medicine at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles in 1996. He practiced medicine until a year and a half after the release of The Kite Runner.



Hosseini is currently a Goodwill Envoy for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR). He lives in Northern California with his wife, Roya, and their two children.

Forcaste

His 2003 debut novel, The Kite Runner, was an international bestseller, selling in more than 10 million copies worldwide. His second, A Thousand Splendid Suns, was released on May 22, 2007. In 2008, the book was the bestselling novel in the UK (as of April 11, 2008), with more than 700,000 copies sold.