And the Mountains Echoed
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
6correct to beat the crowd
40 free And the Mountains Echoed trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Khaled Hosseini's third novel opens in 1952 with a father, two children and a walk to Kabul that splits a family for good. From that single afternoon the book fans out through generations and across continents, following a brother and sister who are parted young and the many people whose lives the separation touches. This quiz covers the plot and its turning points, the main characters and how they connect, the places the story travels to, and the background: how Hosseini came to write the book, where its title comes from and how readers received it. It suits book clubs, students revising the novel and anyone who has just turned the last page and wants to see how much stayed with them. Every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What does Abdullah help his little sister Pari collect, treasures that she stores in a box?
Feathers
Feathers are Pari's passion, and Abdullah guards her box of them for decades after she is taken from him.
Q 02Which debut novel made Khaled Hosseini famous ten years before And the Mountains Echoed appeared?
The Kite Runner
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.
Q 03To which European capital does Nila Wahdati move in the 1950s, taking her adopted child with her?
Paris
Paris is where Nila, whose own mother was French, raises Pari to believe she is her child by birth.
Q 04Which illness prevents the elderly Abdullah from recognising Pari when the two are finally reunited?
Alzheimer's disease
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.
Q 05Which group, prominent in Hosseini's first two novels, stays largely in the background of And the Mountains Echoed?
The Taliban
The Taliban barely figure because the characters' struggles are private ones; Hosseini said he was glad the change kept his storytelling fresh.
Q 06Unlike Hosseini's earlier novels, how is the story of And the Mountains Echoed told?
A new viewpoint each chapter
A new viewpoint each chapter makes the book read almost like linked short stories, nine in all, tied together by one family's separation.
Q 07What illness leaves Mr. Wahdati bedridden, prompting his wife Nila to leave Kabul with Pari?
A stroke
A stroke fells him in 1955, and one loyal servant nurses him in the same Kabul home for the rest of his life.
Q 08In which US state are Abdullah and Pari reunited, more than fifty years after they were parted?
California
California is where Abdullah settled after leaving Afghanistan; Pari crosses half the world to find him there in 2010.
Q 09Which creature takes a farmer's child in the bedtime story that opens And the Mountains Echoed?
A div
A div, a demonic giant, takes the boy, and the tale foreshadows the bargain its teller is about to strike in Kabul.
Q 10Which brother of Parwana, a servant of the Wahdatis, arranges for Pari to be sold to his employers?
Nabi
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.
Q 11Abdullah has raised his little sister Pari himself since their mother died in what way?
In childbirth
In childbirth, bringing Pari into the world, which is why ten-year-old Abdullah is more parent than brother to her.
Q 12Which twin of Parwana is left paralysed by a fall and later asks to be abandoned in the desert?
Masooma
Masooma had been due to marry the man both twins loved; her jealous sister made her fall from a tree.
Q 13What kind of business does Abdullah open in the United States after leaving Afghanistan?
A restaurant
A restaurant serving kebabs is Abdullah's livelihood in America, where he raises a girl he names after his lost sister.
Q 21For which art form is Nila Wahdati, Pari's glamorous adoptive mother, renowned in Kabul?
Poetry
Poetry made Nila's name, and its frank sensuality set her apart; Hosseini drew her from outspoken women at his parents' Kabul parties.
Q 22How does Pari, long after the death of Nila Wahdati, learn the truth about her adoption in Kabul?
A posthumous letter
A posthumous letter from the old servant who arranged the sale reaches her in 2010, nearly sixty years after she was taken.
Q 23What does the Wahdatis' chauffeur find in a Kabul closet that shows his employer loves him?
Sketches of him
Sketches of him fill a stack of books kept there; unnerved, he plans to quit, then stays on as carer for decades.
Q 14What is the name of the fictional Afghan village where Abdullah and Pari spend their early years?
Shadbagh
Shadbagh is where the walk to Kabul begins in 1952; father and children camp a night in the desert on the way.
Q 15The foreign medic who lodges in the old Wahdati home grew up on an island in which country?
Greece
Greece is his homeland: he was raised on the island of Tinos, and one chapter leaves Kabul behind for his boyhood there.
Q 16Which profession did Khaled Hosseini practise for more than ten years before writing full-time?
Physician
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.
Q 17The title And the Mountains Echoed adapts a line from Nurse's Song, a verse by which English writer?
William Blake
William Blake's line has hills doing the echoing; Hosseini swapped in mountains to make his title.
Q 18And the Mountains Echoed began as one image: a man crossing a desert with a little girl riding in what?
A small wagon
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.
Q 19Which cousin of Idris, who hands out cash to Kabul beggars, ends up paying for Roshi's operations?
Timur
Timur pays for the treatment that the more thoughtful Idris promised and then let slide once he was home.
Q 20Amra Ademovic, the nurse who tends Roshi in Kabul and later adopts her, comes from which country?
Bosnia
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.
Q 24Abdullah's father finally lets him join the walk to Kabul with Pari on which strict condition?
He must not cry
He must not cry, a rule Abdullah breaks when he grasps at last why the three of them have come to the city.
Q 25Which earlier loss helps drive the father of Abdullah and Pari to sell his little girl?
A baby died of cold
A baby died of cold: the family's two-week-old boy froze in their shack, and another hard winter was on its way.
Q 26In And the Mountains Echoed, Adel idolises his rich father until he learns the man is actually what?
A war criminal
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.
Q 27Thalia, whose scarred face shapes her friend Markos's career, was mauled as a girl by which animal?
A dog
A dog tore at Thalia's face, and a botched operation made the damage worse; her ordeal is what sets Markos on his path.
Q 28Back in America, Idris later finds Roshi at a signing for which kind of bestselling book?
A memoir
A memoir of her ordeal makes Roshi a bestselling author, and its dedication thanks the two people who truly helped her.
Q 29Why does Idris travel back to Kabul in 2003 after growing up in the United States?
To reclaim family property
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.
Q 30Which upheaval sends Idris's family, neighbours of the Wahdatis, from Kabul to the United States?
The Soviet invasion
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.