I have an idea in mind already but I'm curious what other people think.
I'm surprised there isn't a thread on him already (unless the search function betrayed me) because I've always considered him to be one of the more notable contemporary authors. Khaled Hosseini is the author of "The Kite Runner", "A Thousand Splendid Suns", and "And the Mountains Echoed".
His novels feature an Afghan protagonist while mostly taking place in Afghanistan, but I find that he's usually juggling two or more perspectives of a single point of contention in his novels, which tends to create the impression that there are multiple protagonists, which is taken a step further in "And the Mountains Echoed" where he weaves together nine loosely connected story lines, whereby each chapter is dedicated to each individual perspective, over the span of 60-odd years, as he has a tendency to hop through time in his novels. The themes of family and war tend to come up quite frequently.
"I hate resting. I feel restless. My preference is to be working."
"I don’t outline at all, I don’t find it useful, and I don’t like the way it boxes me in. I like the element of surprise and spontaneity, of letting the story find its own way. For this reason, I find that writing a first draft is very difficult and laborious. It hardly ever turns out to be what I thought it was, and it usually falls quite short of the ideal I held in my mind when I began writing it. I love to rewrite, however. A first draft is really just a sketch on which I add layer and dimension and shade and nuance and color. Writing for me is largely about rewriting. It is during this process that I discover hidden meanings, connections, and possibilities that I missed the first time around. In rewriting, I hope to see the story getting closer to what my original hopes for it were."
"One of the things novels should do is shine a light on those parts of us that are common, the fibers that connect all of us. They should convey the sense that we're all connected, coming from the same tree, sharing common roots. Nothing happens in a vacuum in life: every action has a series of consequences, and sometimes it takes a long time to fully understand the consequences of our actions."
"Everyone is an ocean inside. Every individual walking the street. Everyone is a universe of thoughts, and insights, and feelings. But every person is crippled in his or her own way by our inability to truly present ourselves to the world."
I'm surprised there isn't a thread on him already (unless the search function betrayed me) because I've always considered him to be one of the more notable contemporary authors. Khaled Hosseini is the author of "The Kite Runner", "A Thousand Splendid Suns", and "And the Mountains Echoed".
His novels feature an Afghan protagonist while mostly taking place in Afghanistan, but I find that he's usually juggling two or more perspectives of a single point of contention in his novels, which tends to create the impression that there are multiple protagonists, which is taken a step further in "And the Mountains Echoed" where he weaves together nine loosely connected story lines, whereby each chapter is dedicated to each individual perspective, over the span of 60-odd years, as he has a tendency to hop through time in his novels. The themes of family and war tend to come up quite frequently.
"I hate resting. I feel restless. My preference is to be working."
"I don’t outline at all, I don’t find it useful, and I don’t like the way it boxes me in. I like the element of surprise and spontaneity, of letting the story find its own way. For this reason, I find that writing a first draft is very difficult and laborious. It hardly ever turns out to be what I thought it was, and it usually falls quite short of the ideal I held in my mind when I began writing it. I love to rewrite, however. A first draft is really just a sketch on which I add layer and dimension and shade and nuance and color. Writing for me is largely about rewriting. It is during this process that I discover hidden meanings, connections, and possibilities that I missed the first time around. In rewriting, I hope to see the story getting closer to what my original hopes for it were."
"One of the things novels should do is shine a light on those parts of us that are common, the fibers that connect all of us. They should convey the sense that we're all connected, coming from the same tree, sharing common roots. Nothing happens in a vacuum in life: every action has a series of consequences, and sometimes it takes a long time to fully understand the consequences of our actions."
"Everyone is an ocean inside. Every individual walking the street. Everyone is a universe of thoughts, and insights, and feelings. But every person is crippled in his or her own way by our inability to truly present ourselves to the world."