A New-Historical Interpretation Of Hosseini's The Kite Runner And A Thousand Splendid Suns

Afghan writer Khaled Hosseini is the author of three novels,The Kite Runner,A Thousand Splendid Suns and And the Mountain Echoed.The novels tell breath-taking stories of the common Afghans from the second half of the 20 th century.With these novels he hopes to reveal to the world what the real Afghans are like,since the images of Afghans seem to have been stereotyped and biased since the beginning of the 21 th century.To see how he creates the images of Afghanistan and its people,New Historical critical approach is employed in the paper.The analysis is conducted in the light of historicity of the text and textuality of history,subversion and containment,two pairs of the New-historical concept.By contrasting the speech by the U.S.President George Bush delivered on the 10 th day after the 9·11 terrorist attack,and selection from VOA news,with the portrait of the Afghans in two of Hosseini's novels,The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns,conclusion can be reached that the American media mainly describes the Afghans as terrorists or as being brutalized by the terrorist,while in the novels Afghans show that they are common people suffering from incessant wars but they still harbor hope and love and hospitality in their heart.So political speeches and news reports have their textuality and fictional texts have their historicity.Besides,the writer's identity and his purpose of writing in certain circumstance also take their parts.When Khaled Hosseini successfully subverts the negative images portrayed in news reports,he again exposes the social problems in Afghanistan,like the racial and religious problems and gender problems.Exposure of the Afghan problems is woven with the writer's admiration and gratitude to America which is either intentionally or unintentionally described as land of happiness and freedom.By discussing the dynamic change of the writer's cultural identity,this study comes to conclude that Hosseini's American identity and his education in the U.S.cause his identification with the American culture.In his books,on one hand he hopes to subvert theprejudiced Afghan image because of his Afghan background and his inclination for the Afghan culture.On the other hand,since his writing occurred in the U.S.that grants him the permission for the subversion,his novels have been contained as part of the American political power discourse.Consequently,his admiration for American is also natural.