The Kite Runner
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50 free The Kite Runner trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
Khaled Hosseini's The Kite Runner follows Amir from a privileged boyhood in 1970s Kabul to exile in California and back again, haunted by one afternoon when he failed his closest friend, Hassan. The novel has sold in the millions, is a favourite of book clubs, and still starts arguments about loyalty, guilt and what it takes to make amends. This quiz covers the whole book: the characters and what they are to one another, the plot from the opening chapters to the final scene, the lines readers quote most, and the Afghan history and customs behind the story. A few questions step outside the novel to its author and the 2007 film. It is written for students revising for a test, book clubs looking for a discussion starter, and anyone who has just turned the last page. Every answer comes with a short explanation, so you can check a detail or settle a debate as you go.
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Q 01In The Kite Runner, what was Hassan really to Amir, a secret that Baba took to his grave?
His half-brother
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.
Q 02In The Kite Runner, which words complete Hassan's promise as he chases Amir's prize kite: 'For you, …'?
A thousand times over
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.
Q 03In The Kite Runner, who phones Amir from Pakistan to tell him 'there is a way to be good again'?
Rahim Khan
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.
Q 04In The Kite Runner, what does Baba tell Amir is the only real sin, of which every other is a variation?
Theft
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.
Q 05In The Kite Runner, which animal does legend say Baba once wrestled with his bare hands?
A bear
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.
Q 06In The Kite Runner, which weapon does Hassan aim at Assef's eye to stop the bully attacking Amir?
A slingshot
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.
Q 07In The Kite Runner, which condition of Hassan's does Baba pay a surgeon to repair as a birthday present?
A cleft lip
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.
Q 08In The Kite Runner, what does Amir do when he sees Assef attacking Hassan in an alley after the tournament?
He runs away
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.
Q 09In The Kite Runner, which country's army occupies Kabul when Baba and Amir are smuggled out of Afghanistan?
The Soviet Union
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.
Q 10In The Kite Runner, what is the name of Hassan's son, whom Amir goes back to Kabul to rescue?
Sohrab
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.
Q 11In The Kite Runner, Hassan belongs to which ethnic minority that Assef wants driven out of Afghanistan?
Hazara
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.
Q 12In The Kite Runner, what colour is the final kite Amir cuts down to win the 1975 tournament in Kabul?
Blue
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.
Q 13In The Kite Runner, in which season, with schools shut, does Kabul hold its kite-fighting tournament?
Winter
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.
Q 21In The Kite Runner, in which California city do Baba and Amir make their new home as refugees?
Fremont
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.
Q 22In The Kite Runner, where does Baba, once a wealthy Kabul merchant, find work in California?
A gas station
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.
Q 23In The Kite Runner, where does Amir first meet his future wife while selling used goods with Baba?
A flea market
Q 14In The Kite Runner, into what do the young Amir and Hassan carve the words 'the sultans of Kabul'?
A pomegranate tree
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.
Q 15In The Kite Runner, which Persian epic do Ali and Hassan give Amir a new copy of for his birthday?
The Shahnameh
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.
Q 16In The Kite Runner, Baba takes Amir to see which sport on horseback, where a rider is trampled to death?
Buzkashi
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.
Q 17In The Kite Runner, what coats the strings of fighting kites so they can slice a rival's line?
Ground glass
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.
Q 18In The Kite Runner, how did Amir's mother die, leaving him sure that Baba secretly blames him?
In childbirth
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.
Q 19In The Kite Runner, which weapon does Assef carry as a boy and still favour as a Taliban official?
Brass knuckles
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.
Q 20In The Kite Runner, what does Baba spend three years funding and building for the children of Kabul?
An orphanage
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.
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'.
Q 24In The Kite Runner, which general's daughter does Amir marry in California shortly before Baba dies?
Soraya
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.
Q 25In The Kite Runner, which illness kills Baba in California a month after he sees Amir married?
Cancer
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.
Q 26In The Kite Runner, what career does the adult Amir build in America, to the early disappointment of Baba?
A novelist
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.
Q 27In The Kite Runner, to which Pakistani city does a dying family friend summon the adult Amir?
Peshawar
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.
Q 28In The Kite Runner, what does Amir hide under Hassan's mattress to make Baba think Hassan is a thief?
A watch and cash
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.
Q 29In The Kite Runner, how does Hassan answer when Baba asks whether he stole from Amir?
He says yes
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.
Q 30In The Kite Runner, inside what do Baba and Amir finally cross the border from Jalalabad into Pakistan?
A fuel tanker
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.