I spent two weeks in Kashgar on the set of The Kite Runner. Kashgar, once a major stop along the old Silk Route, is an ancient city in western China, in the Xinjiang province. It is populated by the Uighar, who are ethnic Turkic Muslims. It is near the Chinese border with Afghanistan, and therefore there is a great deal of cultural, architectural, and ethnic overlap between the two regions. My father traveled with me to China, and I recall how struck we both were at the resemblance between Kashgar and Kabul. The sights and sounds of the city –the crowded markets, the mosques, the donkey-pulled carts, the taxis weaving through pedestrians- were eerily reminiscent of the Kabul that both my father and I remember from the 1970’s. And so I think that the choice of Kashgar as a substitute for Kabul was a truly inspired decision.

Being on the set was a surreal experience. Writing a novel is an intensely personal and solitary undertaking. It’s you and the laptop. Filmmaking is first and foremost a collaborative process. Many different people with different skills have to join together and work in synchrony and harmony. So it was strange for me to see dozens of people running around, trying to transforming this very internal creation of mine into a visual experience for everybody else. It was a unique experience to witness another artist’s visual interpretation of my thoughts. That artist, of course, is Marc Forster, who directed The Kite Runner. I met Marc in Los Angeles back in 2005. From the first, early moments of our meeting, Marc impressed me with his affection for the novel and with his dedication to making a film that would stay true to the spirit of the novel. He immediately endeared himself to me by telling me during that lunch that he would shoot the film largely in Dari –one of the two official languages in Afghanistan- and that he wanted to hire unknowns from that part of the world to play the roles of Amir and Hassan. He stayed true to his word. It was a bold move. It was also brave of him to even want to make this film, since by the time he took the helm, the book had reached a wide readership, and we all know who protective and proprietary readers can be with books that they love. Marc knew that his film would inevitably be compared to the book. However, I don’t think he has to worry. He has made a film that moving and compelling, a film that remains faithful to the core emotional experience of the novel, but also one that is its own entity and can be admired for its own virtues and artistry. I wish him the very best and look forward to the release of the film this December.

In the meantime, I thank you for all of your support and encouragement.

Khaled

I want to take this opportunity to welcome you to The Kite Runner club and thank you for the support and encouragement that you have given me over the last four years. In many ways, the success of The Kite
Runner is an unlikely story. It is populated by characters who live in a distant and, to many in the west, enigmatic country. It is often dark and brutal. Its central character, Amir, is weak, and his behavior is often infuriating. It was published in mid 2003 without much fanfare without the benefit of a huge marketing plan. However, this book has connected now with millions of people around the world. To me, that is a testament to the power of the word-of-mouth phenomenon. From very early on, the response among readers to The Kite Runner was intense and passionate. A grassroots-based, groundswell of support among readers like you kept building over the span of a year or more. Until one day in late 2004, while flying across the country, I saw the passenger next to me reach into her bag and fetch a copy of The Kite Runner. The success of this book is also testament to the ability of fiction to connect people of differing religions, cultures, languages, and nationalities. Regardless of our background, we identify with experiences that are universally human. We identify with Amir’s guilt, his self-loathing, his desire to transcend his own weak nature. Friendship, loss, guilt, forgiveness, atonement are not Afghan experiences but human ones, and fiction is uniquely able to tap into what is common in us all.

I want to thank you for reading The Kite Runner, and for communicating to me over the years what this story means to you. When I set out to write this book, I never imagined that it would be published, let alone that I would receive such warm and kind letters from Paris, Tel-Aviv, Cairo, Rio, Kabul. As a writer, I could not possibly ask for more. I can never thank you enough.
Yours,
Khaled Hosseini.