Nevertheless, Hosseini is more interested in human tragedies that have little to do with war as can be seen by the story of the two horribly disfigured young girls, one who is injured in the war and the other who is injured in an accident at home, and how the injuries inflict the same anguish. In his narrative Hosseini touches on the traumas sustained by those who remain and the traumas of those who leave and return, such as the acute discomfort of the Afghans who left for America and return wealthy and established, only to witness the extreme suffering of the people after years of bombing, shelling and slaughter – ‘survivors of a thousand tragedies a square mile’. Unfortunately, we also meet individuals from the opposite end of the spectrum, people who display their opulence with cool indifference. Afghanistan comes across as primitive and primal, but its poverty-stricken people have a code of conduct that bestows on them resilience and dignity. Wherever we are in the world at any given moment in the novel the backdrop is Afghanistan for, as in his previous books, Hosseini is concerned with its relationship to the west. Throughout the book we are sidetracked by a series of flashbacks, passing through time and far-flung places and introducing characters related in some way to Pari and Abdullah who, with amazing subtlety, impart their unconscious sense of dispossession. Will we get to know if they ever meet again? Will this story have a happy ever after conclusion? The children, who are intensely and innocently loving to each other, are agonisingly torn apart, and we are left with a sense of loss that pervades the whole book. The irony of this tale is that Saboor, the desperately poor handyman/farmer, is about to sell his beloved three-year-old daughter, Pari, to a wealthy couple living in a beautiful mansion in Kabul. The div then gives the father a potion that removes all memory of the div, the son, and the paradise, and everyone lives happily ever after.

He points out how different the boy’s life would be if he returned home and the father sees the truth in what he says. A long time later the father goes to the div to kill him, whereupon the div shows him his son now living happily in a wonderful paradise. The novel begins in Afghanistan with Saboor, father of Abdullah and Pari, telling them a troubling fairy story where a ‘div’ (a demon) traps the father into agreeing to give up to him his favourite son. I hope, instead, just to whet your appetite. In the end each story plays a vital part in the denouement, but I am not going to outline them all as it would honestly spoil your enjoyment. Nevertheless, each one is really important in relation to the main characters and could easily stand on its own. I know that a book review usually tells the story, but this book comprises several stories – at times seemingly unrelated.

And then the mountains echoed