So, then. You want a story and I will tell you one.

That's how children deal with terror, they fall asleep.

The Kite Runner is a story of two boys and a father, and the strange love triangle that binds them.

I wanted to write about Afghanistan before the Soviet war because that is largely a forgotten period in modern Afghan history.

Perhaps this is just punishment for those who have been heartless, to understand only when nothing can be undone.

My family left Afghanistan in 1976, well before the Communist coup and the Soviet invasion. We certainly thought we would be going back. But when we saw those Soviet tanks rolling into Afghanistan, the prospect for return looked very dim. Few of us, I have to say, envisioned that nearly a quarter century of bloodletting would follow.

If my book generates any sort of dialogue among Afghans, then I think it will have done a service to the community.