Mariam is only fifteen when she is sent to Kabul to marry Rasheed. Nearly two decades later, a friendship grows between Mariam and a local teenager, Laila, as strong as the ties between mother and daughter. When the Taliban take over, life becomes a desperate struggle against starvation, brutality and fear. Yet love can move a person to act in unexpected ways, and lead them to overcome the most daunting obstacles with a startling heroism.

About the Author
Khaled Hosseini was born in Afghanistan and his family received political asylum in the USA in 1980. He lives in California and he works as a physician. First published in the UK in September 2003 and winner of the Borders Original Voices Award and a New York Times bestseller, The Kite Runner, his first novel, won The Penguin/Orange Broadband Readers' Group Prize three years in a row from 2006.

A Thousand Splendid Suns went straight to Number 1 in the Fiction Besteller charts on publication in May 2007. A Thousand Splendid Suns was awarded the Richard