![]() In June of that year, The Kite Runner was published to solid reviews and sales that I would charitably call modest. It was a disturbing revelation and an ominous sign of things to come for my birthplace. I was shaken by what the note implied about America’s perspective and priorities, that Afghanistan was destined to go forgotten once more. This was June of 2002, barely nine months after American forces and Afghan mujahideen had forced the Taliban from power. But it declined me representation because it felt that the US public had moved on from Afghanistan the agency was instead combing for stories about Iraq. The agency had actually read and liked the chapters I had sent, and the letter was promising at first. The only rejection that stung did so for unexpected reasons. The rejections did not surprise me, and I take some pride in reporting that I took them in stride. The manuscript was roundly rejected by more than thirty literary agencies-nearly all of them with the two-sentence boilerplate “Thank you but this isn’t right for us” variety of response. And Amir’s long, gut-wrenching journey ended on barely a whisper of a hopeful note. For much of it, the protagonist was cowardly, self-involved, covetous, needy, dishonest, unethical, and infuriating meanwhile, the characters who were actually noble, true, and just fell to the worst fates. I was an unknown, part-time writer with no literary track record. While it’s now thought of as a runaway success story, The Kite Runner’s path to publication was unlikely, to say the least. Just how many tents they pitched, in how many countries, stunned me-in how many languages, and on how many stages and movie screens they shared their story. They pitched tents in the minds of strangers continents away. They whispered to each reader in their own unique and private language, as they once did to me. They became the center of a many-spoked wheel-with me as the original spoke. Out in the world, Amir and company formed bonds with others. But once a book leaves its creator for bookstore shelves, that connection with the characters is no longer exclusive. I had the illusion that everyone around me lived one life, while I lived many. Amir and Baba became my delicious secrets. ![]() Hunched over the kitchen table in the quiet dark of those early mornings, my ownership over Amir’s tale felt total. I had a foot in his world every waking hour, and he in mine. I listened to wheezing lungs and injected cortisone into frozen shoulders. Then I showered, dressed, and drove to the clinic to treat ailing hearts and aching joints and dormant thyroids. daily and spent three hours alone in the early morning darkness with Amir, Hassan, Baba, and the rest of the souls populating The Kite Runner. Through most of 2001, while still a practicing physician, I woke at 4:30 a.m. A book never belongs more to its writer than while it is still in the act of being summoned forth from the imagination.
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