40 Fun Facts About And the Mountains Echoed

What does Abdullah help his little sister Pari collect, treasures that she stores in a box?

Feathers are Pari's passion, and Abdullah guards her box of them for decades after she is taken from him.

Which debut novel made Khaled Hosseini famous ten years before And the Mountains Echoed appeared?

The Kite Runner spent 101 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list, and its success let Hosseini give up his day job to write.

To which European capital does Nila Wahdati move in the 1950s, taking her adopted child with her?

Paris is where Nila, whose own mother was French, raises Pari to believe she is her child by birth.

Which illness prevents the elderly Abdullah from recognising Pari when the two are finally reunited?

Alzheimer's disease has erased Pari from Abdullah's mind, echoing the fable their father told on the road, which also ends in a merciful forgetting.

Which group, prominent in Hosseini's first two novels, stays largely in the background of And the Mountains Echoed?

The Taliban barely figure because the characters' struggles are private ones; Hosseini said he was glad the change kept his storytelling fresh.

Unlike Hosseini's earlier novels, how is the story of And the Mountains Echoed told?

A new viewpoint each chapter makes the book read almost like linked short stories, nine in all, tied together by one family's separation.

What illness leaves Mr. Wahdati bedridden, prompting his wife Nila to leave Kabul with Pari?

A stroke fells him in 1955, and one loyal servant nurses him in the same Kabul home for the rest of his life.

In which US state are Abdullah and Pari reunited, more than fifty years after they were parted?

California is where Abdullah settled after leaving Afghanistan; Pari crosses half the world to find him there in 2010.

Which creature takes a farmer's child in the bedtime story that opens And the Mountains Echoed?

A div, a demonic giant, takes the boy, and the tale foreshadows the bargain its teller is about to strike in Kabul.

Which brother of Parwana, a servant of the Wahdatis, arranges for Pari to be sold to his employers?

Nabi hopes a child will win him the favour of his employer's wife; after the sale he is no longer welcome in his home village.

Abdullah has raised his little sister Pari himself since their mother died in what way?

In childbirth, bringing Pari into the world, which is why ten-year-old Abdullah is more parent than brother to her.

Which twin of Parwana is left paralysed by a fall and later asks to be abandoned in the desert?

Masooma had been due to marry the man both twins loved; her jealous sister made her fall from a tree.

What kind of business does Abdullah open in the United States after leaving Afghanistan?

A restaurant serving kebabs is Abdullah's livelihood in America, where he raises a girl he names after his lost sister.

What is the name of the fictional Afghan village where Abdullah and Pari spend their early years?

Shadbagh is where the walk to Kabul begins in 1952; father and children camp a night in the desert on the way.

The foreign medic who lodges in the old Wahdati home grew up on an island in which country?

Greece is his homeland: he was raised on the island of Tinos, and one chapter leaves Kabul behind for his boyhood there.

Which profession did Khaled Hosseini practise for more than ten years before writing full-time?

Physician was Hosseini's day job: he wrote his debut in the early mornings before work and says he does not miss medicine at all.

The title And the Mountains Echoed adapts a line from Nurse's Song, a verse by which English writer?

William Blake's line has hills doing the echoing; Hosseini swapped in mountains to make his title.

And the Mountains Echoed began as one image: a man crossing a desert with a little girl riding in what?

A small wagon carrying a little girl, with a boy walking behind, was the picture that came first; Hosseini then wrote to discover who the travellers were.

Which cousin of Idris, who hands out cash to Kabul beggars, ends up paying for Roshi's operations?

Timur pays for the treatment that the more thoughtful Idris promised and then let slide once he was home.

Amra Ademovic, the nurse who tends Roshi in Kabul and later adopts her, comes from which country?

Bosnia is home to Amra, a veteran of war-zone hospitals whom Hosseini created as a tribute to the aid workers he met in Afghanistan in 2003.

For which art form is Nila Wahdati, Pari's glamorous adoptive mother, renowned in Kabul?

Poetry made Nila's name, and its frank sensuality set her apart; Hosseini drew her from outspoken women at his parents' Kabul parties.

How does Pari, long after the death of Nila Wahdati, learn the truth about her adoption in Kabul?

A posthumous letter from the old servant who arranged the sale reaches her in 2010, nearly sixty years after she was taken.

What does the Wahdatis' chauffeur find in a Kabul closet that shows his employer loves him?

Sketches of him fill a stack of books kept there; unnerved, he plans to quit, then stays on as carer for decades.

Abdullah's father finally lets him join the walk to Kabul with Pari on which strict condition?

He must not cry, a rule Abdullah breaks when he grasps at last why the three of them have come to the city.

Which earlier loss helps drive the father of Abdullah and Pari to sell his little girl?

A baby died of cold: the family's two-week-old boy froze in their shack, and another hard winter was on its way.

In And the Mountains Echoed, Adel idolises his rich father until he learns the man is actually what?

A war criminal is what the rich man turns out to be: he has built his mansion on villagers' land while funding schools that make him look a hero.

Thalia, whose scarred face shapes her friend Markos's career, was mauled as a girl by which animal?

A dog tore at Thalia's face, and a botched operation made the damage worse; her ordeal is what sets Markos on his path.

Back in America, Idris later finds Roshi at a signing for which kind of bestselling book?

A memoir of her ordeal makes Roshi a bestselling author, and its dedication thanks the two people who truly helped her.

Why does Idris travel back to Kabul in 2003 after growing up in the United States?

To reclaim family property is the plan, but the trip leaves Idris ashamed of his comfort and bound to a promise he will not keep.

Which upheaval sends Idris's family, neighbours of the Wahdatis, from Kabul to the United States?

The Soviet invasion empties the house down the street from the Wahdatis; two boys raised there come back as grown men and find they are foreigners in Kabul.

Who narrates the final chapter of And the Mountains Echoed, set in 2010?

Abdullah's daughter, who shares her aunt's name, tells the ending, in which the long-parted pair meet again at last.

Who murders the family of young Roshi and leaves her with the terrible injury Idris sees in Kabul?

Her uncle turned on the family after a bitter feud with her father, a private crime in a book that keeps armies and politics in the background.

Which grandson of Parwana tells Adel the truth about the land under his father's mansion?

Gholam's family once farmed that ground; an attempt to prove it in court fails when a judge is paid off.

What does Mr. Wahdati leave in his will to the servant who nursed him in Kabul for decades?

The family house passes to the servant, who later gives it over as a home for foreign medics treating wounded children.

Which organisation's 2007 trip to Afghanistan gave Hosseini the idea for And the Mountains Echoed?

The UN Refugee Agency named Hosseini a goodwill envoy, and the same trip moved him to start a foundation that houses returning Afghan families.

Which annual honour named And the Mountains Echoed its Best Fiction winner in its publication year?

The Goodreads Choice Award is decided by readers' votes, fitting for a book that sold three million copies within five months.

Which country had sixteen rival unofficial translations of And the Mountains Echoed on sale by 2017?

Iran stood outside the Berne copyright convention, so any publisher there could issue its own version of a foreign bestseller.

Nila Wahdati's account of her early life reaches readers through which device in the 1974 chapter?

A magazine interview, set out as questions and answers, lets Nila tell her own story; Hosseini wanted her real, not likable.

Adel's mansion stands on land that once belonged to which villager, the father of Abdullah?

Saboor farmed that ground long before the rich man took it; decades on, his descendants try to win it back and fail.

What is the first name of Mr. Wahdati, the wealthy Kabul husband of Nila who adopts Pari?

Suleiman Wahdati stays behind in Kabul when his wife leaves, tended by one loyal servant until his death.