One of the most anticipated books of the summer is Khaled Hosseini's “A Thousand Splendid Suns.” And with the movie based on his first novel, “The Kite Runner,” due out this November, 2007 promises to be a big year for Hosseini.

Growing up in Afghanistan, Hosseini says he always wanted to be a writer, but didn’t think he could translate it into a career. In 1980, his family immigrated to California, as the Soviets invaded their home country, and there, as a teenager, Hosseini took on his first job as a part-time school janitor. He went on to become a practicing physician and only recently put his doctor life on hold to devote himself fully to writing. With the success of his first novel, it being born again as a film (in regards to “The Kite Runner” being filmed in China’s Xinjiang Autonomous Region, Hosseini believes, “It was a stroke of genius to film there. When my father and I visited [Xinjiang for the filming] we thought it looked like Kabul.”) and finishing his newest title, Hosseini hopes he is helping keep the dialogue about Afghanistan open and that “… people will see a piece of life in Afghanistan and develop some empathy.”

“A Thousand Splendid Suns” was conceived during Hosseini’s 2003 trip to Afghanistan, the first time he returned after fleeing as a child. “In Kabul I went out in the streets and just started meeting people,” says Hosseini over the phone from his home in San Jose, California. “They are incredibly generous with their stories.” “The Kite Runner,” says Hosseini, was such a male dominated tale that much of the whole picture of Afghanistan was left out. “I felt I had one more Afghanistan story is me,” he says, “and [the women’s] stories touched me.”

In Kabul, one woman told Hosseini about a neighbor who sprinkled rat poison over the last of the bread and fed it to her family, reserving the largest portion of poison for herself, because she felt there was no hope for Afghanistan under Taliban control. A variation of this tragedy and others like it are found in “A Thousand Splendid Suns” and offer poignant glimpses into Afghan society at that time. “These story were so startling that once you heard them you can’t forget,” says Hosseini. “It is these collective grievances that make up ‘Suns.’” The novel is placed against 30 years of Afghanistan's volatile history—from the Soviet invasion to 9/11 and the aftermath—and revolves around the lives of two women, Mariam and Laila.

We are first introduced to Mariam as a child, the accidental offspring of a wealthy business owner and his maid. Forced into a sort of exile with her mother away from the city, Mariam lives in a world largely her own, broken up by visits from her father who she adores and the biting tongue of her mother who wishes Mariam could see her father for who he really is. After her mother’s death, Mariam is briefly transposed to her father's home in the city, but at the urging of his wives to save the family from the embarrassment an illegitimate child brings, Mariam, at 15, is quickly married off to a middle-aged shoemaker in Kabul.

Just down the street from Mariam’s new home, we meet Laila, a girl of privilege who is encouraged to think and make something of herself. We watch as Laila and her childhood playmate Tariq become teenagers and realize that the deep bond between them is more than friendship. As their love blooms, the city around them is torn apart by missiles and gun fights. In quick succession, Tariq and his parents flee the country and a devastating tragedy befalls Laila’s family, leaving her in the hands of Mariam and her husband.

“Mariam is a person who is an outsider to society, so the odds are stacked against her, but she wants very ordinary things,” explains Hosseini. “The thing I love about her is that this is someone who just wants acceptance. Then she finds it in the most unexpected places.” On the other hand, “Laila is a vibrant, ambitious young woman who actually has high demands on life, so her fall is very dramatic,” continues Hosseini. “Laila has to adjust to the reality around her, but in the end she is similar to Mariam as they are driven by a maternal instinct.” Their lives converge in the house of the brutal shoemaker who cares little for Mariam and Laila beyond their ability to produce an heir to replace the one he lost. With his simple and effective storytelling, Hosseini weaves their broken lives together as the women struggle to survive the violence inside their home and the violence ravaging their country, ultimately finding strength and hope in each other.

“This book is about hope,” says Hosseini. “Women endure (‘There is only one, only one skill a woman like you and me needs in life and they don’t teach it in school …’ Mariam's mother tells her in the novel. ‘Only one skill. And it’s this: tahamul. Endure. It’s our lot in life, Mariam. Women like us. We endure.’), but at the end of the enduring I believe there is hope.”

China Ghosts

My Daughters Journey to America, My Passage to Fatherhood By Jeff Gammage

Jeff Gammage's touching, sometimes hilarious and ultimately moving account of navigating the Chinese adoption scene, meeting his daughter and getting to know Jin Yu is a must read for anyone contemplating adoption in the Middle Kingdom.

CW: What's the best advice you have for those thinking of adopting?

Gammage: Think hard about whether China is right for you and your family. If the answer is yes, then I would say, buckle up—you’re about to begin the ride of your life.

What are three things parents-to-be should bring to China?

Patience, cheerfulness and flexibility. Also, try to give yourself some slack when you’re getting to know your child. You read these adoption stories on the Web, and it can sound like there’s something wrong if it’s not love at first sight with violins in the background. The reality is you come off the plane exhausted and disoriented, step into country where you don’t know a soul and can’t speak the language—and then they hand you a child! Don’t beat yourself up if it's tough sledding at first. It’s a new relationship, and like others it takes time.

Whats the most meaningful thing your daughter has taught you?

Jin Yu has taught me to have faith ... in other people, in other countries, in the ability of things to work out for the best. The people who run the government in China—who had never met me—had faith that Jin Yu and I would be good for each other, and they were absolutely correct. Jin Yu has faith that I'll always do my best for her, and she too is absolutely correct.

Does Jin Yu have any advice for people adopting from China?

She [says],“Let the baby have a little rest.” I thought (but did not say), “Jin Yu, it’s the parents who need a little rest.” William Morrow, 272 pages, June 2007

The Road

By Cormac McCarthy

One of the greatest writers of our time, Cormac McCarthy, won this year's Pulitzer Prize for "distinguished fiction by an American author" with his portrayal of a post-apocalyptic America in “The Road.” (A well-deserved, if not long over due honor.)

McCarthy, 73, first made a splash in the literary scene with “All the Pretty Horses,” a desperately beautiful tale of an American cowboy in Mexico (this novel became the first in his Border Trilogy, a series the New York Times called the fifth most important work in American fiction in the last quarter century).

McCarthy’s writing is punctuated by great tragedy, simple dialogue and a brave disregard for punctuation. In “The Road,” McCarthy focuses on a father and his young son as they slowly travel south across a destroyed America where earthquakes and fire storms rule the “cauterized terrain” and the few people left are forced to tie scraps of cloth across their faces to endure the ash-filled air. In this bleak future, where “nights [are] dark beyond darkness and the days more gray each one than what had gone before,” McCarthy’s characters rely on the good in themselves as they face marauding bands of cannibals (“We’re the good guys right,” he asks his father. And the others are “the bad guys.”) and starvation. As they travel along highways to reach the coast, they are often forced to hide themselves and their cart with their few possessions off the road to let Mad Max-like villains pass. They rifle through abandoned homes, often filled with dead bodies, to look for cans of food that were passed over by those there before them. The father and son continue on, becoming weaker, their relationship strained by the human atrocities committed all around them. As in all of McCarthy’s novels, there is a central guiding light of hope in the most bleak of places, making it all the more haunting, devastating and beautiful.

Picador, 241 pages, paperback March 2007

Summer's also a great time to catch up on the brilliant books you missed while your nose was to the grindstone. Undoubtedly one of the most talked about books this year by an Asian author was "The Inheritance of Loss." In 2006 and at the age of 35, Indian-born novelist Kiran Desai became the youngest female writer to win the prestigious Man Booker Prize for her novel "The Inheritance of Loss." "It was very surreal," says Desai. "My life seems like a cartoon now. I don't think I realized how drastically it would change things." Indeed, the soft-spoken writer's schedule is now filled with non-stop interviews, taking her from Sri Lanka and the United States to Hong Kong and Shanghai, where she spoke at the International Literary Festival this past March. "As a writer it makes you terribly self-conscious. Writing comes from being full of doubt; it doesn't come from a contented place." Yet Desai has much to be content about now. What began as a deeply personal endeavor—much of the story is tied to her own life, and took her over seven years to write—has ended up being not only an unexpected political statement, but also her chance to leave a literary footprint that may guide a new generation of Indian writers. "If you come from a country like India, you're automatically thrown into a kind of ambassadorial role," says Desai. "You're forced into all sorts of political debates and arguments, no matter what your intentions as a writer were." Indeed, her novel brims with the kind of fodder that fuels today's political debates, from illegal immigration and the effects of multiculturalism to nationalist terrorism and cheap labor.

The novel steps in and out of the stories of a network of characters: Sai as she uncertainly veers into adulthood; the judge, who against his will cannot forget his lower-caste past; the judge's poor cook, whose son is an illegal immigrant struggling in New York City; and Gyan, Sai's tutor and secret lover who leaves her to join the local Nepalese insurgency.

Head Booker judge Hermione Lee heralded the book as "a magnificent novel of humane breadth and wisdom, comic tenderness and powerful political acuteness." Yet Desai says her mission was more personal than political. "I wanted to understand in my own way the parallel debate of what immigration means in the United States and in India, when it's explored as an international issue that happens everywhere," says Desai, who is an immigrant herself.

To be sure, though, Desai has gained more than just an award with the success of "The Inheritance of Loss." She is an inspiration for today's young Indian writers. "As an Indian there is a pressure to write a certain kind of book, such as the arranged marriage book. As more books like it are published and sold, the more the market grows. But in fact it may not be the best kind of book that should be out there," says Desai. "Writers should fight against this pressure. There are so many voices and parts of the world that are completely silent. Theirs are the stories I would like to read." —Courtney Woo

If you liked "The Inheritance of Loss," pick up this new title:

If Today Be Sweet by Thrity Umrigar

Another novel under what is being labeled "immigrant fiction," mirrors Desai’s work in that the core of the writing revolves around Indian identity and the unique immigration issues many are facing today. Bestselling author Thrity Umrigar explores in her novel, “If Today Be Sweet,” the decisions an Indian mother is faced with after her husband passes away: move to America to live with her son and his blond American wife or stay in India. Umrigar, like Desai, is skilled at storytelling and weaves the complexities of our global world and the current state of American society into a simple and moving family tale.

William Morrow, 296 pages, May 2007