It is difficult to express suffering in a work of fiction, and keep it true to real experiences. Books often exaggerate events and actions to the point where it becomes unbelievable to accept such events were based on a true story. For this reason, reading A Thousand Splendid Suns was incredibly refreshing. With the novel centring around the persecution of women in Afghanistan, the brutal honesty of the novel is heart breaking, and yet a justice to the real lives of women in Afghanistan, and the suffering they endured on a day to day basis during the rule of the Mujahideen and the Taliban.
The novel follows the story of two women, Mariam and Laila. Mariam is an uneducated ‘harami’ whilst Laila is an intelligent girl. Mariam is superior in age and plain in looks, whilst Laila is younger and beautiful. Despite the differences between the two women, conflict in Afghanistan - due to political instability- and in the domestic sphere, causes their worlds to collide. Amid turmoil and suffering, Laila and Mariam come to find solace in one another and readers see the establishment and development of a mother- daughter bond between the two women , as they struggle to survive against Rasheed, their abusive husband and the oppression that all women face from various political groups. Difficult topics are explored, including rape and domestic abuse. All men in the novel control and use women for their own purposes, as Jalil uses his daughter Mariam by marrying her off to protect his reputation, and Rasheed refuses to let Laila out in public unless she is accompanied by someone and is wearing a burqa. The oppression that Mariam and Laila face reflects the reality of women’s lives in Afghanistan. Hosseini refrains from censoring the hardships that both women go through. Readers are forced to sit through every beating Mariam takes, every slap Laila gets, every sacrifice each of the women make, in the knowledge that such writings are not woven fantasies, but the harsh truth of many Afghan women, in the past and today. Somewhere in that country, a woman is being abused by their husband they were forced to marry. That woman may be 14 years old, or 40 years old. This woman’s pain and suffering mirrors thousands upon thousands of other women both from the past and in the now, who have been abused.
The beauty of A Thousand Splendid Suns is its rawness. There is no sugar-coating and no event in the story is romanticized. As we feel for the two lead women in the story, we feel for the many other women who have or do experience situations much like those experienced by Mariam and Laila. The story raises awareness of the ill treatment of women, and brings to light the horrors of abuse. Reading this novel has been an eye-opening experience; an experience that prevents me from being ignorant any longer. This novel taught me to believe in the power of unity, not just between women, but between people. The selfless love between Mariam and Laila made me realise that it is love and unity that can overcome any conflict.
