Khaled Hosseini Discusses New Novel ‘And The Mountains Echoed’ [Exclusive Video]

Khaled Hosseini, the best-selling author of The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, recently spoke to Uinterview about his latest novel, And The Mountains Echoed – a family tale that spans generations and continents.

Hosseini, who was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, begins his epic novel in a small village outside of the bustling city in the 1950s, with a 10-year-old brother and 3-year-old sister who are about to be torn from one another. “This one act of separation then becomes the trunk of the novel, which is shaped like a tree,” Hosseini told Uinterview exclusively. “A number of plotlines emerge from this center one, and meet the rather large cast of characters as the novel progresses who are connected to and affected by this one central event.”

Read the full transcript of Part 1 of Uinterview’s exclusive interview with Khaled Hosseini here.

And the Mountains Echoed developed organically for Hosseini, who forgoes any kind of outlining or plotting before setting down to write. “I begin often with an idea, and a very small one and it just kind of snowballs,” Hosseini revealed. “Novels, at least for me, end up deciding their own fate really, rather than me just kind of pulling the strings.”

One such story that emerged for Hosseini in And the Mountains Echoed was a subplot of unrequited love between two men. “There’ve been romantic male-female, boy-meets-girl in my books, but I’m very interested in these intense kinds of relationships between unlikely partners, often who find themselves under the condition of duress,” said Hosseini, who admits an interest in what he calls “unusual manifestations of love.”

Read Uinterview’s book review of And The Mountain’s Echoed here.

“The intention is for [the novel] to become a kind of mosaic,” Hosseini told Uinterview exclusively. “In that once the reader is done with the book, he has heard individual voices, the cumulative effect being it’s kind of like a choir.”

And the Mountains Echoed has received considerable praise from critics since it hit bookshelves May 21. Part 2 of Uinterview’s exclusive interview with Khaled Hosseini will be available soon.

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