"Kite Runner" author turns to Afghan women in new book

NEW YORK, May 22 (Reuters) His novel ''The Kite Runner,'' about the troubled friendship of two Afghan boys, struck a chord with millions of readers but Khaled Hosseini says he felt part of the Afghan story was left untold -- the women's side.

''I went into this with a bit more of a mission than the first novel,'' Hosseini said of his new book ''A Thousand Splendid Suns,'' which was published today.

''The Kite Runner'' was published in 2003, a time of high public interest in Afghanistan because of the US invasion after the Sept.

11 attacks. It spent more than two years on the bestseller lists with more than 4 million copies now in print.

''That first novel was entirely populated by men, it was really a story about men and the friendship between men,'' Hosseini told Reuters in an interview. ''The whole gender issue I had pretty much steered clear of in that novel.'' In 2003 Hosseini, a physician who lives in the United States, returned to his native Afghanistan for the first time since 1976 on a two-week trip to see for himself how the country was faring after the toppling of the Taliban.

''Many of the things I saw and experienced in Kabul came back to me when I started writing this novel,'' Hosseini said.

The new book is the story of two women, Laila and Mariam, thrown together by forced marriages to the same man. Initially suspicious of each other, they forge a deep friendship that is told against the backdrop of three decades of Afghan history.

''In some senses they're inspired by the collective voice of the women that I met in Afghanistan back in 2003,'' he said.

''The issue of women is a very sensitive one in Afghanistan,'' he said. ''(But) the things I talk about have been well documented, particularly when it comes to the fighting between the warlords and what the Taliban did to the people.'' Publishers Weekly magazine gave ''A Thousand Splendid Suns'' a coveted starred review, describing it as ''powerful (and) harrowing.'' ''Hosseini gives a forceful but nuanced portrait of a patriarchal despotism where women are agonizingly dependent on fathers, husbands and especially sons, the bearing of male children being their sole path to social status,'' it said.

A movie of ''The Kite Runner'' is due for release later this year and Hosseini said discussions were in the early stages for the second book to be made into a film as well.

''In many ways Afghanistan still is very much a mysterious and enigmatic place to a lot of people,'' Hosseini said, adding that while his books were by no means history books, he was happy if they spark curiosity about Afghanistan in readers.

''I've always found that fiction has been a great way for me to learn about things,'' he said. ''I learned more about the great depression from 'The Grapes of Wrath' than I did from reading any history book.'' Hosseini said the Iraq war had distracted attention from Afghanistan, which was still struggling with huge problems such as illiteracy, healthcare, poor infrastructure and corruption.

''I landed in Kabul on 2003 on the very day that the war started in Iraq,'' he said.

''You could all but hear the collective groan break out in Kabul because there was a fear that when that war happened it would funnel attention and money and funds and assistance from Afghanistan into this potentially open-ended, big war.

''And to a large extent that's what's happened. Afghanistan is not a front page news story any more. Iraq is.'' REUTERS AE SSC1028