I'm sorry," Laila says, marveling at how every Afghan story is marked by death and loss and unimaginable grief. And yet, she sees, people find a way to survive, to go on.

For you, a thousand times over

The story of what has happened to women in Afghanistan, however, is a very important one, and fertile ground for fiction.

People in the countryside carry a sense of dignity. They wear it, don't they? Like a badge? I'm being genuine.

sometimes the shifting of rocks is deep, deep below, and it's powerful and scary down there, but that all we feel on the surface is a slight tremor. Only a slight tremor.

I opened my mouth, almost said something. Almost. The rest of my life might have turned out differently if I had. But I didn’t.

In March of 2001, I revisited the short story, and found that thought it did not work well as a short story, it might work much better as a longer one. The novel [The Kite Runner] came about as an expansion of that original, unpublished short story.