It's difficult to imagine a harder first act to follow than The Kite Runner: a debut novel by an unknown writer about a country many readers knew little about that has gone on to have over four million copies in print worldwide. But when preview copies of Khaled Hosseini's second novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns, started circulating at Amazon.com, readers reacted with a unanimous enthusiasm that few of us could remember seeing before. As special as The Kite Runner was, those readers said, A Thousand Splendid Suns is more so, bringing Hosseini's compassionate storytelling and his sense of personal and national tragedy to a tale of two women that is weighted equally with despair and grave hope.

We wanted to spread the word on the book as widely, and as soon, as we could. See below for an exclusive excerpt from A Thousand Splendid Suns and early reviews of the book from some of our top customer reviewers.

Khaled Hosseini was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, and moved to the United States in 1980. His first novel, The Kite Runner, was an international bestseller, published in 34 countries. In 2006 he received the Humanitarian Award from the United Nations Refugee Agency and was named a U.S. goodwill envoy to that agency. He lives in northern California.

現年四十二歲的鬍賽尼，父親為阿富汗外交官，1980年蘇聯入侵阿富汗，全傢逃到美國尋求政治庇護。《追風箏的孩子》讓原本學醫的鬍賽尼名利雙收，接連獲得多項創作／齣版新人奬，2006年並獲聯閤國難民署的人道奬，鬍賽尼受任命為難民署的親善特使。《追》書席捲全球四十三國發燒，好萊塢也正改拍電影。