The life of women in third world countries is not something you can simply imagine. When the topic comes to mind, you may think of endless housework and subjection to men. But, to what extent? That’s a question none of us can answer - until we pick up A Thousand Splendid Suns.
Just thinking about the plight and suffering described in this novel brings tears to my eyes, and I’m the type of person who thinks crying over books and movies is lame. Something about Mariam and Laila, the two protagonists, hits home. It wasn’t that I could relate to their struggle. As a teenager in a first-world country, I have always been exposed to comfort and snap relief. But, as a woman, their pain seemed too real - almost too real to be true. What happened to them in the course of the novel could’ve happened to anyone. It could’ve happened to me.
When you first start reading, you are sucked into Mariam’s childhood world in Afghanistan, where she regularly plays outside and helps out her rather cynical mother. You witness her joy when she meets her father every week, who lives in a different house yet is extremely loving toward his daughter. You see Mariam doing the things any child would do - until one event ignites the fuse, and the novel explodes into a series of uphills and more so downhills.
A Thousand Splendid Suns is one of those novels you can’t discuss without giving away spoilers, but what I can say is this: it will change your life. It will make you think about everything differently, especially the privileges and rights you have in a well-established, democratic country. Hopefully, you will also feel more gratitude toward your parents, peers, and professors. Mariam and Laila lack either one or more of these, while we take them for granted. It’s eye-opening to see the disparity all around us.
Even if you hate reading, this is the one novel you should make time for. It’ll inform you about third-world struggles with the detail you can’t get in textbooks and the emotion you can’t get in newspaper articles. I feel like the majority of us are complacent about the money we can spend and the freedom that we have. I think it’s more than time for us to step back and view the world in the shoes of another, as Scout from To Kill a Mockingbird would say.
So, what are you waiting for? Go check out A Thousand Splendid Suns right now and prepare to dive into a world that will both terrify and fascinate you. I promise you it’ll be worth. I promise you that once you are done reading the very last words, you will sit back and think:
I want more.
