They tell me I must wade into waters, where I will soon drown. Before I march in, I leave this on the shore for you. I pray you find it, sister, so you will know what was in my heart as I went under.

And the past held only this wisdom: that love was a damaging mistake, and its accomplice, hope, a treacherous illusion. And whenever those twin poisonous flowers began to sprout in the parched land of that field, Mariam uprooted them. She uprooted them and ditched them before they took hold.

[Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns] is not just unique to books, but films and music.

I don't know what this feather means, the story of it, but I know it means he was thinking of me. For all these years. He remembered me.

I started a foundation, called The Khaled Hosseini Foundation. The mission has been to help the most vulnerable groups in Afghanistan. So the focus has been on women, children, and homeless refugees, most of whom are in fact women and children.

And suddenly, just like that, hope became knowledge. I was going to win. It was just a matter of when.

Gone. Vanished. Nothing left. Nothing said.