Both born in Afghanistan a generation apart and with very different ideas about love and family, Mariam and Laila are brought together by war, by loss and by fate. As they endure the ever escalating dangers around them -- in their home as well as in the streets of Kabul -- they form a bond that will ultimately alter the course of their lives and the lives of the next generation. With heart-wrenching power and suspense, Hosseini shows how a woman's love for her family can move her to shocking and heroic acts of self-sacrifice, and that in the end it is love, or even the memory of love, that is often the key to survival....

‘Hosseini is a truly gifted teller of tales….he’s not afraid to pull every string in your heart to make it sing’ THE TIMES Twelve-year old Amir is desperate to win the approval of his father and resolves to win the local kite-fighting tournament to prove that he has the makings of a man. His loyal friend Hassan promises to help him – for he always helps Amir – but this is 1970s Afghanistan and Hassan is merely a low-caste servant who is jeered at in the street, although Amir feels jealous of his natural courage and the place he holds in his father’s heart. But neither of the boys could foresee what would happen to Hassan on the afternoon of the tournament, which was to shatter their lives. After the Russians invade and the family is forced to flee to America, Amir realises that one day he must return to find the one thing that his new world cannot grant him: redemption. ‘A devastating, masterful and painfully honest story’ DAILY TELEGRAPH ‘Rings true with tenderness and truth. In the sense that Amir is the one who struggles to master his fatal flaw, he is the hero of the book, but it is Hassan’s silent, sacrificial love that will bring the lump to your throat’ DAILY MAIL ‘Hosseini’s ability to reach the core of experiences of love and loss places him in the company of such fine chronicles of the new America as Chang-rae Lee …… A novel of unusual generosity, honesty and compassion’ INDEPENDENT ‘Rich in warmth and humour …. full of haunting images, vivid and engaging’ NEW YORK TIMES...

A deluxe collector's edition of the phenomenally bestselling The Kite Runner, filled with striking and memorable photographs that bring Khaled Hosseini's compelling story to life.

Since its publication in 2003, The Kite Runner has shipped over four million copies and spent more than two years on the New York Times bestseller list. Taking us from Afghanistan in the final days of the monarchy through the horrific rule of the Taliban, The Kite Runner is the heartbreaking story of the unlikely and inseparable friendship between a wealthy Afghan boy and the son of his father's servant, both of whom are caught in the tragic sweep of history. Published in the aftermath of America's invasion of Afghanistan, Khaled Hosseini's haunting writing brought a part of the world to vivid life that was previously unknown.

Now this beautifully produced, collectible hardcover enhances Khaled Hosseini's story with unforgettable color and black-and-white photographs of the people of Afghanistan and their surroundings, further illustrating the world in which the story is set and heightening the already powerful experience of reading this incredible book....

“I sat on a bench near a willow tree and watched a pair of kites soaring in the sky. I thought about something Rahim Khan said just before he hung up, almost as an afterthought, ‘There is a way to be good again.’”

Now in paperback, one of the year’s international literary sensations -- a shattering story of betrayal and redemption set in war-torn Afghanistan.

Amir and Hassan are childhood friends in the alleys and orchards of Kabul in the sunny days before the invasion of the Soviet army and Afghanistan’s decent into fanaticism. Both motherless, they grow up as close as brothers, but their fates, they know, are to be different. Amir’s father is a wealthy merchant; Hassan’s father is his manservant. Amir belongs to the ruling caste of Pashtuns, Hassan to the despised Hazaras.

This fragile idyll is broken by the mounting ethnic, religious, and political tensions that begin to tear Afghanistan apart. An unspeakable assault on Hassan by a gang of local boys tears the friends apart; Amir has witnessed his friend’s torment, but is too afraid to intercede. Plunged into self-loathing, Amir conspires to have Hassan and his father turned out of the household.

When the Soviets invade Afghanistan, Amir and his father flee to San Francisco, leaving Hassan and his father to a pitiless fate. Only years later will Amir have an opportunity to redeem himself by returning to Afghanistan to begin to repay the debt long owed to the man who should have been his brother.

Compelling, heartrending, and etched with details of a history never before told in fiction, The Kite Runner is a story of the ways in which we’re damned by our moral failures, and of the extravagant cost of redemption....