25 Facts About Khaled Hosseini

Khaled Hosseini or Khalid Husseini is an Afghan-American novelist, UNHCR goodwill ambassador, and former physician.

Khaled Hosseini's debut novel The Kite Runner was a critical and commercial success; the book and his subsequent novels have all been at least partially set in Afghanistan and have featured an Afghan as the protagonist.

Khaled Hosseini was briefly a resident of Iran and France after being born in Kabul, Afghanistan, to a diplomat father.

When Khaled Hosseini was 15, his family applied for asylum in the United States, where he later became a naturalized citizen.

Khaled Hosseini did not return to Afghanistan until 2003 when he was 38, an experience similar to that of the protagonist in The Kite Runner.

In later interviews, Khaled Hosseini acknowledged that he suffered from survivor's guilt for having been able to leave the country prior to the Soviet invasion and subsequent wars.

Khaled Hosseini was born on March 4,1965, in Kabul, Afghanistan, the eldest of five children.

Khaled Hosseini spent eight years of his childhood in the upper class Wazir Akbar Khan neighborhood in Kabul.

In 1973, Khaled Hosseini's family returned to Kabul, and Khaled Hosseini's youngest brother was born in July of that year.

In 1976, when Khaled Hosseini was 11 years old, his father secured a job in Paris, France, and moved the family there.

When Khaled Hosseini initially came to the United States, he was fifteen years old and could not speak English.

Khaled Hosseini describes the experience as "a culture shock" and "very alienating".

Khaled Hosseini graduated from Independence High School in San Jose in 1984 and enrolled at Santa Clara University, where he graduated with a bachelor's degree in biology in 1988.

In 2003, Khaled Hosseini published his first novel, The Kite Runner, the story of a young boy, Amir, struggling to form a deeper connection with his father and coping with memories of a traumatic childhood event.

Khaled Hosseini made a cameo appearance towards the end of the movie as a bystander, when Amir purchases a kite which he, then, flies with Sohrab.

Khaled Hosseini is currently a Goodwill Envoy for the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees.

Khaled Hosseini has been working with the Khaled Hosseini Foundation to deliver humanitarian aid in Afghanistan.

The concept for the foundation was inspired by the trip to Afghanistan that Khaled Hosseini made in 2007 with UNHCR, with the organisation raising funds to build homes for refugees returning to Afghanistan.

Sea Prayer, an illustrated short story by Khaled Hosseini that was released in 2018, was motivated by the drowning of three-year-old Alan Kurdi, a refugee who was trying to get to Europe from Syria.

Khaled Hosseini has cited a Persian translation of Jack London's White Fang as a key influence from his youth, in addition to translations of novels including Alice in Wonderland and Mickey Spillane's Mike Hammer series.

Khaled Hosseini is married to Roya, and they have two children.

Khaled Hosseini is fluent in Persian and Pashto, and has described himself as a secular Muslim.

In July 2022, Khaled Hosseini announced via social media that his 21-year-old child had come out as transgender.

In 2008, Khaled Hosseini received the Golden Plate Award of the American Academy of Achievement.

In 2014, Khaled Hosseini received the John Steinbeck Award from the Martha Heasley Cox Center for Steinbeck Studies at San Jose State University.