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A Letter to 'A Thousand Splendid Suns'

Dear A Thousand Splendid Suns,

Sometimes, somebody asks me about my favourite book, and I talk about the novel I read that year or the story that recently struck a chord with me. I come home and I realize, I should have taken your name. It's you, it's always been you ever since we met.


It's not like I never knew about war. I knew that wars were one country attacking another for mostly a political dispute or over resources; I knew that it would have a number of countries supporting each side and that it always ended with bloodshed and violence and fuming rage and pieces of body parts flung in the air. However, I never knew about war until I met you. I never knew war until you brought me across Laila and Mariam.


I never knew so many feelings until you brought me across Laila and Mariam. I never felt my heart sink in this way until you got me across the fact that girls weren't allowed to roam on the road without a male relative or they'd be beaten up. I never knew the feeling of anguish until I knew of the violence that happened inside the four walls and how it stayed inside, without a law system to interfere.


You have such a beautiful style - descriptive but without being overly so, a complex plot while focusing on the protagonists plus with brilliant imagery. You've shown character development and transformation better than any novel I've come across. You've shown me what it is like to be a female in Afghanistan, especially during the Taliban rule. 


Yes, you've given me heartache but amidst your pages, you've also provided me with immense nobility and vigour. You teach how to find courage in the face of despair to every single person who picks you up. You fill me with anger and restlessness, anger and powerlessness, anger and hope, all at the same time.


Thank you, for bringing me across Mariam and Laila, for bringing me across a million people who saw the roads littered with bodies, with glass, with shrapnel, with loot, murder and rape being a daily story, with people losing their lovers and families, with people praying that some stray metal wouldn't hit their home this particular time. Thank you for showing the fight for love, fight for family, fight for power and the concept of revenge like never before. Thank you for breaking my heart over and over again, making me watch children suffer, women suffer. Thank you for later filling my heart with resilience and hope.


If I'd to recommend just one book, I'd recommend you. Over and over again. A thousand times.


Yours sincerely,

Hemali Gandhi 


This letter was one of the top ten entries in the P.S. I Love Literature Letter Writing Competition of The Novel Room, our Book Discussion Club. Students wrote letters to characters, writers, poets, books as part of a creative review and response activity, and these were read out in the session on April 29, 2021.

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