Goodness gracious, me! If it isn’t the Physician and Surgeon’s Almanac of March 4th, 2015.
It’s the birthday of Khaled Hosseini born in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 1965, his father was a diplomat in the Afghan Foreign Ministry and his mother taught Farsi and history at a high school. Following the Soviet invasion of their homeland, the Hosseinis fled to the United States as political refugees, where Hosseini graduated from high school on to the University of California, San Diego where he earned a medical degree in 1993.
While practicing as an internist, Hosseini published his first novel, The Kite Runner, that went on to become an international bestseller. It tells the story of Amir, a young boy, and his closest friend, Hassan, set against a backdrop of Soviet invasion, life in exile, and the rise of the Taliban. The story was later adapted to stage, film and a graphic novel.
In 2007, his second novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns, debuted and spent fifteen weeks as #1 on the New York Times bestseller list, remaining in that spot for and nearly an entire year on the bestseller list. The book focuses on the tumultuous lives and relationships of two Afghan women, separated by time and connected by marriage to the same husband.
No longer practicing medicine, Hosseini now lives in northern California and leads the Hosseini foundation, working to provide humanitarian assistance in Afghanistan.
Here’s a poem by the poet and mother of the Afghan King, Mirwais Hotak...
Dew drops from an early dawn narcissus
as if tear drops from a melancholy eye,
O beauty, I asked, what makes you cry
life is too short for me, it answered
My beauty blooms and withers in a moment
as if smile comes and forever fades away
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