The Kite Runner

In Fremont, California, Amir and Baba try to rebuild their lives. While Amir finishes high school, Baba works as a gas station attendant, eventually getting promoted to day manager. Baba is less successful in assimilating into American culture than Amir. He has become alienated from other Afghans for his outspoken political views and struggles with the language. Amir tries his best to help Baba acclimate, encouraging him to take English classes, but Baba is too proud to and refuses. When Baba tries to write a check for a kindly couple who run a small grocery store, Baba flies into a frenzy after the owner asks to see identification, saying they must think he is a thief. Amir suggests that they go back to Peshawar, where they waited for their visas to enter the United States. Although they were uncomfortable, Amir remembers the community that was available to Baba while he waited for his papers with other Afghans, some of whom they knew from Kabul. Baba refuses: “Peshawar was good for me. Not good for you” (112). 

When Amir graduates high school, he is 20 years old. Baba treats him to dinner at an Afghan kabob house, and they go drinking at a bar. Baba finally breaks through the American social barrier by buying round after round for the bar patrons in celebration. When they are nearly home, Baba tells Amir to drive to the end of the block, where Baba has parked Amir’s graduation present, a navy-blue Ford Gran Torino. Pleased, Baba tells Amir that he wishes Hassan were with them. Amir uses his car to drive the highways and marvel at the neighborhoods of expensive homes. He imagines America as a river where he can forget his past. 

The following summer, Baba and Amir buy and sell wares at a flea market in San Jose, where a small Afghan community has survived around its customs and traditions. Baba introduces Amir to General Iqbal Sahib Taheri, an acquaintance from Kabul who worked for the Ministry of Defense, now trading at the flea market like Baba. After Amir meets his daughter Soraya, he asks Baba about her. Baba tells him that she was involved with a man out of wedlock and was viciously shamed for the transgression.

Amir pursues Soraya, going out of his way to pass by the Taheri stall at the flea market. Baba is supportive but reminds Amir that General Taheri is driven by traditions of honor and pride: “[...] Pashtun to the root. He has nang and namoos [...] Just don’t embarrass me, that’s all I ask” (126-27). When Amir finally works up the courage to speak to Soraya, he can already sense that the Afghanis at the swap meet are observing the unchaperoned chatting. Soraya’s mother, Jamila, arrives. She asks Amir to stay. When he respectfully declines, Amir gains Jamila’s admiration as a well-mannered suitor for her daughter, as Jamila is eager to see Soraya courted.

Jamila’s presence brings the young romance closer in line with Afghan custom and gives a new sense of legitimacy to Amir’s pursuit of Soraya, protecting the young woman’s reputation in the community. However, when Amir brings Soraya a copy of a story he is working on, her father appears. He throws the story away and informs Amir that he is being observed by the Afghans at the flea market, discouraging the union that flourished without his consent: “You see, everyone here is a storyteller” (133).

Bana develops a cough. At a doctor’s visit, they learn he has lung cancer so advanced that chemotherapy would only delay his inevitable death. Gripped by fear for having to live without his father, Amir tries his best to talk Baba into the treatment, but Baba is resolute against it. When Amir asks what he is supposed to do without him, Baba tells him that he has been trying to teach him how to be self-reliant all these years. Baba suffers his deterioration in secret until he collapses into convulsions at the flea market. At the hospital, Amir learns the cancer has spread to Baba’s brain. The hallways are crowded with Afghans who come to pay their respect to Baba—colleagues and acquaintances that Amir can scarcely recognize. The Taheris are also present. Amir and Soraya hold hands for the first time, their quiet romance still alive. 

After Baba is discharged two days later, Amir asks him if he will go “khastegari”: “I want you to ask General Taheri for his daughter’s hand” (141). Baba does so eagerly, happy to carry out “one last fatherly duty” (142). After General Taheri accepts, Soraya and Amir speak over the phone. Soraya is elated but tells Amir she must reveal her dark secret to him before they can be married. Soraya recounts the details of her affair, when she ran away with a man and lived out of wedlock with him for nearly a month before her father brought her back. When she came home, she found that the shock of her transgressions had caused her mother to have a stroke. She asks if it bothers him to know she had been with another man, and Amir reflects that Soraya’s secret shame is nothing compared to the secret he has carried with him since he witnessed Hassan’s attack. He envies her for having admitted her secret and briefly considers telling his own but does not.

The following night, Amir and Baba attend the “giving word” ceremony thrown at the Taheris’ home. Two dozen Afghanis have gathered to witness the coming together of the two families. General Taheri comes to Amir and tells him that he is pleased: “Now, this is the right way—the Afghan way—to do it” (146). Because of Baba’s infirmity, the customary Afghani engagement courtships are rushed. Baba spends much of his life savings on a banquet hall for the wedding reception, and before long, Amir and Soraya are married. Watching men and women dance to traditional music, Amir wonders if Hassan, too, has started a family.

At her own suggestion, Soraya moves in with Amir to care for Baba during his last days. One day, Amir returns and notices Soraya hiding the leather-bound notebook that Rahim Khan gave him the night of his 13th birthday. Baba admits to having asked her to read Amir’s stories from the notebook. Baba dies soon after. Mourners from all throughout the local Afghan community come to pay their respects. 

While working as a security guard, Amir begins work on a novel, and it is published after its completion. He uses the advance on his second novel to buy a home for Soraya and himself in Fremont, but when they try to start their own family, they struggle to conceive. They see a specialist, Dr. Rosen, who suggests they consider adoption. Amir and Soraya stay together, but the absence of a child in their lives is a palpable emptiness they can both sense. Amir wonders if he isn’t being punished for the events of his life in Kabul.