In many parts of the world, a man's accusing finger always finds a woman. But I think we need women to solve the problems that men create.

I have lived a long time, and one thing I have come to see is that one is well served by a degree of both humility and charity when judging the inner workings of another person's heart

Hassan and I fed from the same breasts. We took our first steps on the same lawn in the same yard. And, under the same roof, we spoke our first words. Mine was Baba. His was Amir. My name. Looking back on it now, I think the foundation for what happened in the winter of 1975 —and all that followed— was already laid in those first words.

Laila has moved on. Because in the end she knows that’s all she can do. That and hope.

It's literally just been formed. It's a 501 C3, non-profit charitable foundation called, unsurprisingly, the Khalled Hosseini Foundation. The aim is to help refugees and aim vulnerable women and children.

When I was in Afghanistan in 2007, I went from village to village where refugees had returned, and they were living out in the open under tents, sometimes completely exposed to the environment. And they were homeless, which meant they would lose children in the winter to the cold and in the summers in the extreme heat. It's extremely humiliating for them to be homeless, culturally it's very shameful.

A story is like a moving train: no matter where you hop onboard, you are bound to reach your destination sooner or later.