Who would have known a random book I picked up from our communal bookshelf will usher me to a whole different culture on the other side of the world. While it is not that far from where I am geographically in Hong Kong, the cultural divide is telling. Afghanistan.

That I am flabbergasted and broken describes how I felt about reading the entire 370-page masterpiece of Afghani author, Khaled Hosseini. I was keen to know if it was based on real facts and stories -it was. Compiled together in a way that flows into a mesmerizing, unforgettable novel – it is worth converting into a film. 

The initial plot was set in Iran and later transitioned to Afghanistan. It was a very despondent and traumatic story of several characters led by Mariam and Laila. Both are the main protagonists of the book who exhibited both strength and vulnerability under the most trying and difficult of circumstances one could ever imagine. Torment, abuse, war, name it. The darkest times of the Taliban rule had Afghani women suffer indiscriminately because of their gender. The unimaginable part was how a family member could undermine their own – inflicting physical, mental and emotional pain. There are no words.

 My heart bleeds for Mariam most especially whose whole life was one of grief and agony. There was hardly a pause until a sudden twist of fate. An unexpected encounter with a stranger who proved to be her life’s only redemption.

With an anticlimactic finish, it still offered a glimmer of hope for the future and the young characters left behind.