I think the emancipation of women in Afghanistan has to come from inside, through Afghans themselves, gradually, over time.

In 2004, I took a one year sabbatical to finish my second novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns. At the end of that year, I was not done with my book, and had to in effect resign from work. I did. I never went back.

When you have lived as long as I have, the div replied, you find that cruelty and benevolence are but shades of the same color.

In Kabul, hot running water had been like fathers, a rare commodity.

You don't order someone to polish your shoes one day and call them 'sister' the next.

But then it passed, as all things do.

There are, however, those who have called the book [The Kite Runner] divisive and objected to some of the issues raised in the book, namely racism, discrimination, ethnic inequality etc.