50 Fun Facts About The Kite Runner

In The Kite Runner, what was Hassan really to Amir, a secret that Baba took to his grave?

Hassan was his half-brother, because Baba had secretly fathered him with the wife of his servant Ali. Amir hears it only decades later, when both Baba and Hassan are dead.

In The Kite Runner, which words complete Hassan's promise as he chases Amir's prize kite: 'For you, …'?

A thousand times over is Hassan's cry as he sets off after the last kite of the 1975 tournament. Amir says the same words to Hassan's son in the novel's final scene.

In The Kite Runner, who phones Amir from Pakistan to tell him 'there is a way to be good again'?

Rahim Khan, Baba's old friend and business partner, makes the call because he has always known what Amir did in 1975. The line sends Amir back to Afghanistan to put it right.

In The Kite Runner, what does Baba tell Amir is the only real sin, of which every other is a variation?

Theft, says Baba: to kill is to rob a man of his life, and to lie is to rob someone of the truth. The lesson turns bitter once Amir learns what Baba himself kept from him.

In The Kite Runner, which animal does legend say Baba once wrestled with his bare hands?

A bear, and a black one at that, is what Kabul believes Baba fought, pointing to the long scars on his back. Amir later dreams of the fight and sees himself as the wrestler.

In The Kite Runner, which weapon does Hassan aim at Assef's eye to stop the bully attacking Amir?

A slingshot makes Assef back down and swear revenge on both boys. Decades later Hassan's son carries out the threat with the same kind of weapon and puts out Assef's eye.

In The Kite Runner, which condition of Hassan's does Baba pay a surgeon to repair as a birthday present?

A cleft lip, which the novel calls a harelip, is repaired by a plastic surgeon Baba hires for Hassan's birthday. Amir is jealous that Hassan gets such special attention.

In The Kite Runner, what does Amir do when he sees Assef attacking Hassan in an alley after the tournament?

He runs away, then pretends to Hassan that he saw nothing. Amir calls it the moment that made him who he is, and his guilt over it drives the rest of the novel.

In The Kite Runner, which country's army occupies Kabul when Baba and Amir are smuggled out of Afghanistan?

The Soviet Union invaded in 1979, and Baba and Amir slip across the border in 1981. Baba so hates the occupiers that, dying in California, he refuses a doctor with Russian roots.

In The Kite Runner, what is the name of Hassan's son, whom Amir goes back to Kabul to rescue?

Sohrab is named after the doomed young warrior in the story Hassan loved most as a boy. Amir finds him in the hands of a Taliban official and takes him home to America.

In The Kite Runner, Hassan belongs to which ethnic minority that Assef wants driven out of Afghanistan?

Hazara families like Hassan's are mocked in Kabul for their features and their Shia faith. Amir, a Sunni Pashtun, says that history and religion kept him from ever calling Hassan his friend.

In The Kite Runner, what colour is the final kite Amir cuts down to win the 1975 tournament in Kabul?

Blue is the kite Hassan refuses to hand over to Assef, because it is Amir's trophy for Baba. Amir later finds him walking home with it still in his hands.

In The Kite Runner, in which season, with schools shut, does Kabul hold its kite-fighting tournament?

Winter shuts Kabul's schools for the icy months, which makes it the boys' season for kites. It is also the one time of year when Amir feels close to Baba.

In The Kite Runner, into what do the young Amir and Hassan carve the words 'the sultans of Kabul'?

A pomegranate tree in a hilltop cemetery is where Amir reads stories to Hassan. When Amir comes back as an adult the tree is decrepit, but he can still make out the carving.

In The Kite Runner, which Persian epic do Ali and Hassan give Amir a new copy of for his birthday?

The Shahnameh, Ferdowsi's Book of Kings, is the source of the hero tales Amir reads aloud to Hassan. Their favourite is about a father who kills his own son in battle without knowing him.

In The Kite Runner, Baba takes Amir to see which sport on horseback, where a rider is trampled to death?

Buzkashi, Afghanistan's national sport, sets teams of horsemen fighting over an animal carcass. Amir cries all the way home after the accident, and Baba cannot hide his disgust.

In The Kite Runner, what coats the strings of fighting kites so they can slice a rival's line?

Ground glass turns every string into a blade that cuts rival lines and the fliers' own hands. Amir and Hassan finish the tournament with bloodied palms.

In The Kite Runner, how did Amir's mother die, leaving him sure that Baba secretly blames him?

She died in childbirth, bleeding to death as Amir was born. Sofia Akrami had been a respected teacher of literature, and Amir feels Baba hates him a little for costing him his wife.

In The Kite Runner, which weapon does Assef carry as a boy and still favour as a Taliban official?

Brass knuckles make Assef the terror of Amir's neighbourhood. He pulls them on again when the adult Amir comes to his house, breaking Amir's ribs and leaving his jaw to be wired shut.

In The Kite Runner, what does Baba spend three years funding and building for the children of Kabul?

An orphanage, which Baba designs himself with no training as an architect, makes the young Amir proud of his father. Decades later Amir hears that it was destroyed in the fighting.

In The Kite Runner, in which California city do Baba and Amir make their new home as refugees?

Fremont is where the once-wealthy Baba lives in an apartment and misses his old life in Kabul. For Amir, America is a welcome escape from his memories of Hassan.

In The Kite Runner, where does Baba, once a wealthy Kabul merchant, find work in California?

A gas station gives Baba long hours for little pay, a hard fall for a man who once threw Amir a birthday party for four hundred guests. He sees America as a gift to his son, not to himself.

In The Kite Runner, where does Amir first meet his future wife while selling used goods with Baba?

A flea market in San Jose is where Baba and Amir sell their yard-sale finds out of an old Volkswagen bus. Amir privately calls the general's daughter his 'Swap Meet Princess'.

In The Kite Runner, which general's daughter does Amir marry in California shortly before Baba dies?

Soraya Taheri tells Amir a secret of her own before the wedding: she once ran off with a man in Virginia. Amir envies her, because she is now free of her secret and he is not.

In The Kite Runner, which illness kills Baba in California a month after he sees Amir married?

Cancer, first seen as a spot on his lung after he coughs up blood, is a fight Baba refuses to prolong with chemotherapy. One of his last acts is to ask the general for his daughter's hand on Amir's behalf.

In The Kite Runner, what career does the adult Amir build in America, to the early disappointment of Baba?

A novelist is what Amir becomes, finishing his first book in 1988. Baba had hoped for a doctor or a lawyer, yet in his last weeks he asks to have his son's stories read to him.

In The Kite Runner, to which Pakistani city does a dying family friend summon the adult Amir?

Peshawar is also where Amir and Baba first arrived as refugees in 1981. Amir flies there a week after the call and hears the truth about Hassan.

In The Kite Runner, what does Amir hide under Hassan's mattress to make Baba think Hassan is a thief?

A watch and cash go under the mattress the morning after Amir opens his thirteenth-birthday presents. He can no longer face Hassan and wants him out of the house.

In The Kite Runner, how does Hassan answer when Baba asks whether he stole from Amir?

He says yes, a lie told to protect Amir, who sees that Hassan knows exactly who framed him. Baba forgives the boy at once, but Ali insists that the two of them leave.

In The Kite Runner, inside what do Baba and Amir finally cross the border from Jalalabad into Pakistan?

A fuel tanker hides the refugees in darkness and choking fumes. Amir's schoolmate Kamal suffocates on the way, and the boy's father shoots himself on arrival.

In The Kite Runner, at what kind of sporting event in Ghazi Stadium does Amir see a couple stoned to death?

A soccer match pauses at half-time so that a Taliban official can stone two accused adulterers in pits dug behind the goalposts. Amir sits through it because that official is holding Hassan's son.

In The Kite Runner, which disguise does Amir put on to pass unnoticed in Taliban-ruled Kabul?

A fake beard, worn long with traditional Afghan clothes, lets Amir blend in on the streets. Assef has it ripped from his face as soon as the two men meet.

In The Kite Runner, what does Amir unexpectedly start doing while Assef beats him almost to death?

He laughs, because the beating feels like the punishment he has been owed since the day of the 1975 tournament. His body is broken, but for the first time in years he feels healed.

In The Kite Runner's final scene, what does Hassan's silent son give Amir during a kite fight?

A smile, barely there, is the first sign of life from a boy who has not spoken since he reached America. Amir takes it as a beginning and chases the fallen kite for him.

In The Kite Runner, whose biography does Assef give Amir as a present at his thirteenth birthday party?

Adolf Hitler is Assef's hero, and as a boy he talks of finishing what the dictator started. Amir unwraps the book alone and throws it into the bushes.

In The Kite Runner, Amir's first short story is about a man whose magic cup turns his tears into what?

Pearls make the man so greedy that the story ends with him weeping on a mountain of them beside his murdered wife. Hassan asks why he did not simply smell an onion.

In The Kite Runner, which animal's look does Amir see on Hassan's face, recalling an Eid sacrifice?

A lamb, killed each year in Baba's yard for Eid, has the same look of acceptance just before the knife. The memory of that look haunts Amir for the rest of his life.

In The Kite Runner, what does Hassan say he would sooner do than ever tell Amir a lie?

Eat dirt is Hassan's answer when Amir, doubting where a fallen kite will come down, asks if he would ever lie to him. Amir toys with him by asking whether he would really do it if told to.

In The Kite Runner, which word does Amir, as a prank, tell Hassan means 'smart, intelligent'?

Imbecile is a word Hassan has no way to check, because he stays home doing housework while Amir goes to school. Amir tells himself it is only a harmless prank.

In The Kite Runner, which American statesman does Baba point out in the stands at a horseback tournament?

Henry Kissinger is sitting in the bleachers, but before Amir can ask who he is, a rider falls and is trampled to death. Amir's tears on the drive home embarrass his father.

Which profession did Khaled Hosseini, author of The Kite Runner, practise for over ten years?

Medicine felt to Hosseini like 'an arranged marriage', and he kept seeing patients for a year and a half after his debut came out. Its success let him retire to write full-time.

From which narrative point of view is The Kite Runner told, with the adult Amir looking back on his life?

First person it is, in Amir's own voice, except for one chapter in which an old family friend takes over to tell Hassan's story. Hearing it from the guilty party makes the novel read like a confession.

In which European capital was The Kite Runner's author living when a 1978 coup cut his family off from Kabul?

Paris was his diplomat father's posting from 1976, and the family never moved back. They sought asylum in the United States in 1980, when Hosseini was fifteen and spoke no English.

Which director of Finding Neverland made the 2007 film of The Kite Runner before taking on James Bond?

Marc Forster went straight from this subtitled drama to Quantum of Solace, as the youngest director the Bond series had yet hired. Khaled Hosseini has a cameo as a bystander near the end of his film.

Which future co-creator of Game of Thrones wrote the screenplay for the 2007 film of The Kite Runner?

David Benioff adapted the novel four years before Game of Thrones reached television. He had already seen his own first novel, The 25th Hour, filmed by Spike Lee.

In which country was most of the film of The Kite Runner shot, because Afghanistan was too dangerous?

China's far-western city of Kashgar stood in for the Kabul of the 1970s. Even so, the release was pushed back six weeks over fears for the film's young Afghan actors.

Which language, learned for the shoot by several adult actors, dominates the film of The Kite Runner?

Dari, the Afghan form of Persian, carries most of the dialogue even though the film is an American production. It was nominated for the Golden Globe for Best Foreign Language Film.

In The Kite Runner, what does Baba hand back at a California welfare office on the day he finds work?

Food stamps go back to the welfare office the very day Baba gets a job. Amir's future father-in-law takes the opposite view, collecting welfare because he thinks manual work is beneath him.

In The Kite Runner, which US president's framed picture does Baba hang in his California apartment?

Ronald Reagan is Baba's kind of leader, and Baba is the only Republican among his working-class neighbours. He holds that the only countries worth anything are America, Britain and Israel.

In The Kite Runner, what was the profession of Baba's father, who took the orphaned Ali into the family?

A judge, he heard the case of the two young drivers who had killed Ali's parents, sent them into the army and brought the five-year-old survivor home. Ali and Baba grew up side by side.