An Ecocritical Reading Of Khaled Hosseini’s Works: The Kite Runner&a Thousand Splendid Suns

The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, written by the Afghan-bornAmerican novelist Khaled Hosseini，were both amounted at the number one onthe New York Times bestseller list for a hundred weeks and iffteen weeksrespectively. The two books become beloved classic all around the world.Hosseini was named the2006Humanitarian of the Year by the United NationsHigh Commissioner for Refugees because of his attention and move towards theAfghan refugees.Ecocriticism is a literary critical school rising in1970s，with the increasingintensiifcation of current ecological crisis, and an anxiety of human beings overtheir living surroundings. Ecocriticism carries on literary studies by studying hownature is represented in literary works, exposing species discrimination,reconsidering literary works from the perspective of nature to dig out ecologicalwisdom, criticizing anti-ecological literature, and constructing ecocritical theorybased on ecological philosophy and ecological ethics.This paper will inetrpret the two books: The Kite Runner and A ThousandSplendid Suns from the perspective of ecocriticism by studying a specialperiod—the war period, and exploring the relationship between war, nature andhumanity when people struggled to be alive and make a living. It aims to studyKhaled Hosseini’s ecocritical thinking with the help of his two works and tries toreveal Hosseini’s ecological idea of crisis towards war, nature and human beings.By examining the thematic concerns of the novel through the lens of ecocriticism,we can harvest something of the destructive practices to the contemporaryecological dangers, imbalances and crisis.Seven parts are included in this paper. The ifrst part is an introduction whichmainly introduces the writer Khaled Hosseini and his two works. The followingpart is the literature review. The previous research on the two books at both home and abroad is included in this part. In addition, the research trend and the currentlimitations will be analyzed, and the innovation of this paper will be presented.The body part spreads from chapter three to chapter six. Chapter three introducesthe development of ecocriticism theory at home and abroad as well as the theoryat which point this paper stands. From chapter four to chapter six, analyses on thenatural ecology, social ecology and spiritual ecology of the two books will bemade respectively. Researches on how natural, social and cultural ecologiesinteract with each other will also be carried out. The last part is a conclusion. Itpoints out that The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns are not onlybestsellers, they are full of Khaled Hosseini’s ecocritical thought.