WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:04.500 Today we're unpacking a pretty incredible life 00:00:04.500 --> 00:00:08.019 story. Imagine being a teenager, right? Yeah. 00:00:08.300 --> 00:00:10.720 You arrive in California as a refugee. You speak 00:00:10.720 --> 00:00:13.140 absolutely zero English. None at all. Right, 00:00:13.259 --> 00:00:15.939 none. And then you spend the next 10 plus years 00:00:15.939 --> 00:00:18.920 locked into this grueling medical career that 00:00:19.070 --> 00:00:22.510 you later describe as an arranged marriage. Yeah, 00:00:22.609 --> 00:00:24.230 that phrase really sticks with you. It really 00:00:24.230 --> 00:00:27.269 does. But then somehow this exact same person 00:00:27.269 --> 00:00:31.789 pivots and becomes one of the most defining literary 00:00:31.789 --> 00:00:34.070 voices for a nation that's just completely in 00:00:34.070 --> 00:00:36.729 turmoil. It's a massive shift. Exactly. So for 00:00:36.729 --> 00:00:38.689 you listening, today's Deep Dive is all about 00:00:38.689 --> 00:00:40.689 Khalid Hosseini, the author behind mega hits 00:00:40.689 --> 00:00:42.549 like The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid 00:00:42.549 --> 00:00:45.479 Suns. But our mission here... Just to be clear, 00:00:45.899 --> 00:00:47.899 it isn't just to recite a Wikipedia biography 00:00:47.899 --> 00:00:50.679 or list off his bestseller metrics. We really 00:00:50.679 --> 00:00:52.359 want to get into the underlying mechanics of 00:00:52.359 --> 00:00:55.340 his journey. How does profound survivor's guilt 00:00:55.340 --> 00:00:57.939 actually forge a global literary phenomenon? 00:00:58.259 --> 00:01:01.380 It is such a remarkable trajectory to analyze. 00:01:01.820 --> 00:01:03.219 And actually, if you look at the background of 00:01:03.219 --> 00:01:05.280 my study today, you'll see I've set up a bit 00:01:05.280 --> 00:01:09.000 of a visual metaphor for exactly what we're about 00:01:09.000 --> 00:01:10.640 to discuss. Oh, yeah, I noticed that right away. 00:01:10.739 --> 00:01:13.120 It's an interesting setup. Right. So on one side 00:01:13.120 --> 00:01:15.819 of the room, I have these very stark, highly 00:01:15.819 --> 00:01:18.799 precise medical anatomy charts. And then right 00:01:18.799 --> 00:01:22.000 next to them, hanging on the walls, are these 00:01:22.000 --> 00:01:26.170 incredibly ornate classical Persian tapestries. 00:01:26.409 --> 00:01:28.109 It's like a room completely split between two 00:01:28.109 --> 00:01:30.189 different worlds. Precisely. It's the space of 00:01:30.189 --> 00:01:32.750 duality. And I think that mirrors Hosseini's 00:01:32.750 --> 00:01:35.890 life perfectly. His story isn't just about writing 00:01:35.890 --> 00:01:38.269 books. It's a master class in the psychology 00:01:38.269 --> 00:01:42.650 of diaspora. It shows us how physical distance 00:01:42.650 --> 00:01:45.980 can actually amplify memory. and how being completely 00:01:45.980 --> 00:01:49.579 torn from your homeland forces you to, like, 00:01:49.680 --> 00:01:51.859 inhabit multiple realities all at once. Okay, 00:01:51.939 --> 00:01:54.379 so to really grasp the emotional weight of his 00:01:54.379 --> 00:01:56.159 later work, I think we first have to understand 00:01:56.159 --> 00:01:58.560 what he lost, right? And maybe more importantly, 00:01:59.079 --> 00:02:01.599 how suddenly he lost it. Because Hosseini was 00:02:01.599 --> 00:02:05.319 born in 1965 in Kabul, Afghanistan. And the picture 00:02:05.319 --> 00:02:08.280 of his childhood there is just... it's completely 00:02:08.280 --> 00:02:10.780 counter to the images of Afghanistan that have 00:02:10.780 --> 00:02:13.349 dominated Western news cycles for... what the 00:02:13.349 --> 00:02:15.789 last 40 years? Oh, it is a very different reality. 00:02:15.930 --> 00:02:17.830 I mean, he was born into a highly privileged 00:02:17.830 --> 00:02:20.310 environment. His father was a diplomat for the 00:02:20.310 --> 00:02:23.270 Ministry of Foreign Affairs and his mother was 00:02:23.270 --> 00:02:25.810 a Persian language teacher at a girls high school. 00:02:25.889 --> 00:02:28.870 Wow. OK. Yeah. And they lived in Wazir Akbar 00:02:28.870 --> 00:02:31.590 Khan, which was this upper class, very affluent 00:02:31.590 --> 00:02:33.590 neighborhood in Kabul. Right. I was reading about 00:02:33.590 --> 00:02:36.009 that. He describes Kabul in the 1970s as this 00:02:36.009 --> 00:02:39.490 growing, thriving, cosmopolitan city like he 00:02:39.490 --> 00:02:41.789 has these vivid memories of just being a regular 00:02:41.789 --> 00:02:43.919 kid. you know, flying kites with his cousins 00:02:43.919 --> 00:02:46.379 on the rooftops. Yes, the kite flying is such 00:02:46.379 --> 00:02:49.199 a central, joyful memory for him. And he even 00:02:49.199 --> 00:02:51.439 mentioned in interviews that he doesn't recall 00:02:51.439 --> 00:02:53.800 his sister ever suffering systemic discrimination 00:02:53.800 --> 00:02:56.240 for being female during that specific era. Like 00:02:56.240 --> 00:02:58.599 it was just a vibrant, culturally rich environment. 00:02:58.939 --> 00:03:02.500 It was. But that stability was also pretty fragile. 00:03:02.659 --> 00:03:05.219 It was heavily dependent on his father's diplomatic 00:03:05.219 --> 00:03:08.180 postings. Right. the nature of the job. Exactly. 00:03:08.800 --> 00:03:11.819 So the family moved to Iran in 1970. They came 00:03:11.819 --> 00:03:15.780 back to Kabul in 1973. And then in 1976, when 00:03:15.780 --> 00:03:18.659 Hosseini was 11 years old, his father secured 00:03:18.659 --> 00:03:21.919 a posting in Paris. Oh, Paris. Yeah. So they 00:03:21.919 --> 00:03:25.039 relocate to Europe. Which on paper, I mean, that 00:03:25.039 --> 00:03:26.780 sounds like an incredible adventure for an 11 00:03:26.780 --> 00:03:28.479 -year -old kid. Oh, absolutely. But this is where 00:03:28.479 --> 00:03:31.259 the historical whiplash really happens. Because 00:03:31.259 --> 00:03:33.800 while they are, you know, safely sitting in Paris, 00:03:34.479 --> 00:03:37.780 the political situation back home just completely 00:03:37.780 --> 00:03:40.479 fractures. It falls apart entirely. Yeah, in 00:03:40.479 --> 00:03:44.400 April 1978, the Tsar Revolution occurs. The People's 00:03:44.400 --> 00:03:46.919 Democratic Party of Afghanistan seizes power 00:03:46.919 --> 00:03:50.020 in a violent coup. And just like that... The 00:03:50.020 --> 00:03:52.560 door back home slammed shut. It did. And the 00:03:52.560 --> 00:03:55.080 geopolitical situation deteriorated so rapidly 00:03:55.080 --> 00:03:57.240 from there. I mean, by 1980, with the start of 00:03:57.240 --> 00:03:59.840 the Soviet Afghan War, the family realized that 00:03:59.840 --> 00:04:02.319 returning to Kabul was no longer just dangerous. 00:04:02.400 --> 00:04:05.719 It was impossible. So they had to make a massive 00:04:05.719 --> 00:04:08.719 life altering decision. They sought political 00:04:08.719 --> 00:04:12.000 asylum in the United States, ultimately relocating 00:04:12.000 --> 00:04:14.560 to San Jose, California, when Hosseini was just 00:04:14.560 --> 00:04:19.610 15. I really want you, the listener. pause and 00:04:19.610 --> 00:04:21.310 just try to put yourself in those shoes for a 00:04:21.310 --> 00:04:24.899 second. Imagine that sudden brutal identity reset. 00:04:25.199 --> 00:04:27.399 Yeah, it's unimaginable for most of us. Right. 00:04:27.540 --> 00:04:30.259 You go from being this privileged diplomats kid 00:04:30.259 --> 00:04:33.240 wandering the streets of Paris to suddenly being 00:04:33.240 --> 00:04:35.939 a 15 year old political refugee in California. 00:04:36.319 --> 00:04:39.019 You're experiencing this massive drop in social 00:04:39.019 --> 00:04:41.699 status. You're trying to navigate the already 00:04:41.699 --> 00:04:43.759 terrifying landscape of American high school, 00:04:43.819 --> 00:04:45.879 which is hard enough on its own. Exactly. And 00:04:45.879 --> 00:04:48.259 you cannot speak a single word of English. I 00:04:48.259 --> 00:04:50.540 mean, it's just profound alienation. And what's 00:04:50.540 --> 00:04:52.500 fascinating here is the psychological dichotomy. 00:04:52.560 --> 00:04:55.279 was forced to navigate. This is where we really 00:04:55.279 --> 00:04:57.779 see the intense psychological strain of the diaspora 00:04:57.779 --> 00:05:00.360 experience. Yeah. Because on one hand, he is 00:05:00.360 --> 00:05:03.180 in San Jose. He is physically safe from the gunfire 00:05:03.180 --> 00:05:05.920 and the bombings. But the trauma of war doesn't 00:05:05.920 --> 00:05:08.100 respect geographical borders. No, it doesn't. 00:05:08.300 --> 00:05:11.720 He and his family were acutely aware of the horrors 00:05:11.720 --> 00:05:14.720 unfolding back in Kabul. It's almost like, well, 00:05:14.720 --> 00:05:16.899 it reminds me of phantom limb syndrome. Oh, that's 00:05:16.899 --> 00:05:18.740 an interesting comparison. Yeah. Like when a 00:05:18.740 --> 00:05:21.060 physical limb is amputated, the brain still sends 00:05:21.060 --> 00:05:24.029 signals to it. And sometimes the pain is actually 00:05:24.029 --> 00:05:26.470 worse than when the limb was attached and injured. 00:05:26.720 --> 00:05:29.879 That is a brilliant way to conceptualize it. 00:05:30.040 --> 00:05:32.160 You're safely walking around California, but 00:05:32.160 --> 00:05:34.439 your psychological nerve endings are still firing 00:05:34.439 --> 00:05:37.579 back in Kabul. You're feeling every bit of the 00:05:37.579 --> 00:05:40.560 trauma from thousands of miles away. The phantom 00:05:40.560 --> 00:05:43.420 limb of a lost homeland. Because, you know, the 00:05:43.420 --> 00:05:46.100 news they were getting wasn't just abstract political 00:05:46.100 --> 00:05:48.800 shifts. It was deeply personal and exceptionally 00:05:48.800 --> 00:05:52.339 violent. Right. The 1978 coup led to the immediate 00:05:52.339 --> 00:05:55.279 persecution, imprisonment and execution of people 00:05:55.279 --> 00:05:58.240 affiliated with the previous regime. The Hosseinis 00:05:58.240 --> 00:06:01.100 were hearing these surreal, terrifying stories 00:06:01.100 --> 00:06:04.519 of friends and family just simply vanishing. 00:06:04.819 --> 00:06:07.019 Including his wife's uncle, right? Yes. A very 00:06:07.019 --> 00:06:09.839 famous singer and composer in Kabul who had been 00:06:09.839 --> 00:06:11.959 vocal about his dislike for the new political 00:06:11.959 --> 00:06:15.199 factions. Oh man. And one day, he just disappeared. 00:06:15.560 --> 00:06:19.019 No trial, no explanation. To this day, the family 00:06:19.019 --> 00:06:21.639 has no idea what happened to his body. That is, 00:06:21.819 --> 00:06:24.000 I can't even imagine. So you have this young 00:06:24.000 --> 00:06:26.699 teenager trying to learn English verb conjugations 00:06:26.699 --> 00:06:29.079 during the day while carrying the psychological 00:06:29.079 --> 00:06:32.079 terror of mass executions and vanished relatives 00:06:32.079 --> 00:06:34.800 at night. Which I think brings us to a major 00:06:34.800 --> 00:06:37.579 pivot in his life. Right. Because carrying that 00:06:37.579 --> 00:06:40.730 immense psychological terror, it... demands an 00:06:40.730 --> 00:06:44.290 outlet. Yet, instead of turning to art to process 00:06:44.290 --> 00:06:47.189 this, he makes a surprisingly pragmatic choice. 00:06:47.519 --> 00:06:50.600 He seeks rock -solid stability. Yes, the medical 00:06:50.600 --> 00:06:53.339 route. Right. He spends the next 13 years grinding 00:06:53.339 --> 00:06:55.720 through the American university system. He gets 00:06:55.720 --> 00:06:57.800 a biology degree from Santa Clara University, 00:06:58.139 --> 00:07:01.139 gets into med school at UC San Diego, and finishes 00:07:01.139 --> 00:07:03.459 an internal medicine residency in Los Angeles. 00:07:03.699 --> 00:07:06.399 A huge undertaking. It is. He completely entrenches 00:07:06.399 --> 00:07:08.899 himself in the grueling reality of Western medicine, 00:07:09.339 --> 00:07:11.639 eventually practicing for over a decade. And 00:07:11.639 --> 00:07:13.660 he later famously likened this medical career 00:07:13.660 --> 00:07:16.850 to an arranged marriage. A phrase that tells 00:07:16.850 --> 00:07:18.990 us so much about his internal state during those 00:07:18.990 --> 00:07:21.550 years. Okay, let's unpack this, because I struggle 00:07:21.550 --> 00:07:24.029 with that framing just a little bit. Oh, how 00:07:24.029 --> 00:07:26.910 so? Well, calling a successful medical career 00:07:26.910 --> 00:07:30.970 an arranged marriage almost sounds, I don't know, 00:07:31.189 --> 00:07:33.089 dismissive of a massive life achievement. Paris 00:07:33.089 --> 00:07:36.360 is how you'd say that. We have this romanticized 00:07:36.360 --> 00:07:39.600 myth in our culture of the born artist who drops 00:07:39.600 --> 00:07:42.560 everything to pursue their muse. But Hosseini 00:07:42.560 --> 00:07:44.800 spent hundreds of thousands of dollars and over 00:07:44.800 --> 00:07:48.860 10 years to become an M .D. Right. So was he 00:07:48.860 --> 00:07:51.160 truly miserable or is this just a narrative he 00:07:51.160 --> 00:07:54.199 adopted later to sound more like a destined writer? 00:07:54.560 --> 00:07:57.050 Because honestly isn't becoming a doctor the 00:07:57.050 --> 00:07:59.310 ultimate immigrant success story. You are hitting 00:07:59.310 --> 00:08:01.509 on the exact tension that drives the immigrant 00:08:01.509 --> 00:08:03.730 experience here. It wasn't that he was miserable 00:08:03.730 --> 00:08:06.129 or ungrateful. Medicine is a massive achievement, 00:08:06.170 --> 00:08:08.129 and it is highly respected in his culture and 00:08:08.129 --> 00:08:10.829 in ours. Yeah. But the concept of the arranged 00:08:10.829 --> 00:08:13.009 marriage connects directly to the survivor's 00:08:13.009 --> 00:08:16.149 guilt he was battling. He felt a profound pervasive 00:08:16.149 --> 00:08:18.529 guilt for having escaped Afghanistan before the 00:08:18.529 --> 00:08:20.449 Soviet invasion completely destroyed it. Oh, 00:08:20.449 --> 00:08:23.449 I see. So he chose a career that was fundamentally 00:08:23.449 --> 00:08:27.069 about paying a debt. Precisely. If you survive 00:08:27.069 --> 00:08:29.370 a tragedy that claims the lives of your countrymen, 00:08:29.790 --> 00:08:32.090 you often feel this overwhelming pressure to 00:08:32.090 --> 00:08:34.389 justify your survival. Like you have to earn 00:08:34.389 --> 00:08:37.049 your life. Exactly. You cannot just take up space. 00:08:37.129 --> 00:08:40.090 You have to earn it. And medicine provided a 00:08:40.090 --> 00:08:43.080 socially acceptable honorable and undeniably 00:08:43.080 --> 00:08:45.480 useful way to exist in his new country. Right. 00:08:45.480 --> 00:08:48.039 He's actively saving lives. Yes. It was an arrangement 00:08:48.039 --> 00:08:50.820 that provided stability, respect, and a tangible 00:08:50.820 --> 00:08:53.700 way to help people. But it wasn't his true passion. 00:08:54.139 --> 00:08:56.759 His actual coping mechanism, the way he was truly 00:08:56.759 --> 00:08:59.279 processing that phantom limb pain of Afghanistan, 00:08:59.720 --> 00:09:01.799 was through his secret writing. Right. He's waking 00:09:01.799 --> 00:09:03.559 up at four in the morning before his medical 00:09:03.559 --> 00:09:06.360 rounds to write stories. Exactly. The clinical 00:09:06.360 --> 00:09:08.799 work paid the debt of survival, but the writing 00:09:08.799 --> 00:09:11.090 processed the grief. And here's where it gets 00:09:11.090 --> 00:09:13.750 really interesting for me, because that quiet 00:09:13.750 --> 00:09:17.129 early morning processing of grief eventually 00:09:17.129 --> 00:09:19.570 spills into the public consciousness in a way 00:09:19.570 --> 00:09:21.669 literally nobody could have predicted. No one. 00:09:21.889 --> 00:09:25.009 In 2003, he publishes his debut novel, The Kite 00:09:25.009 --> 00:09:27.830 Runner, and it absolutely explodes. It spends 00:09:27.830 --> 00:09:30.669 101 weeks on the New York Times bestseller list. 00:09:30.879 --> 00:09:33.500 Which is astronomical. Right. And if we look 00:09:33.500 --> 00:09:35.620 at the narrative architecture of the kite runner, 00:09:36.039 --> 00:09:39.379 it is a direct externalization of his own internal 00:09:39.379 --> 00:09:42.340 guilt. Oh, totally. The protagonist, Amir, closely 00:09:42.340 --> 00:09:45.370 mirrors Hosseini's own timeline. Amir struggles 00:09:45.370 --> 00:09:47.549 with traumatic childhood memories, cowardice, 00:09:47.870 --> 00:09:50.450 and the intense complexities of fleeing his homeland 00:09:50.450 --> 00:09:54.289 while others suffer. Hosseini essentially weaponized 00:09:54.289 --> 00:09:57.269 his own survivor's guilt to create a universally 00:09:57.269 --> 00:10:00.169 relatable story about redemption. What blows 00:10:00.169 --> 00:10:02.669 my mind is the timeline of his own redemption, 00:10:02.690 --> 00:10:06.379 so to speak. Just like his protagonist, Hosseini 00:10:06.379 --> 00:10:09.200 himself did not return to Afghanistan until 2003. 00:10:09.299 --> 00:10:12.279 Right. He was 38 years old. He went back to a 00:10:12.279 --> 00:10:14.039 place he hadn't seen since he was a kid playing 00:10:14.039 --> 00:10:17.440 with kites. I can't even fathom the sensory overload 00:10:17.440 --> 00:10:19.399 and the emotional weight of stepping off that 00:10:19.399 --> 00:10:21.720 plane. He must have been overwhelming. But what's 00:10:21.720 --> 00:10:24.940 equally shocking to me is his discipline. He 00:10:24.940 --> 00:10:27.200 didn't just quit medicine the day he got a publishing 00:10:27.200 --> 00:10:29.940 deal. No, he didn't. He continued working as 00:10:29.940 --> 00:10:32.200 an internal medicine physician for up to a year 00:10:32.200 --> 00:10:34.409 and a half after the book came out. That really 00:10:34.409 --> 00:10:37.389 speaks to how deeply ingrained the need for that 00:10:37.389 --> 00:10:40.669 arranged marriage of stability really was. You 00:10:40.669 --> 00:10:43.110 know, you don't just walk away from a decade 00:10:43.110 --> 00:10:45.870 of grueling medical training overnight. Even 00:10:45.870 --> 00:10:48.070 when you hold the bestselling novel in the country 00:10:48.070 --> 00:10:50.649 in your hand. Exactly. I mean, for anyone listening 00:10:50.649 --> 00:10:52.549 who has a passion project they're working on 00:10:52.549 --> 00:10:55.990 after hours, it is a staggering reminder of what 00:10:55.990 --> 00:10:58.950 discipline actually looks like. Absolutely. But 00:10:58.950 --> 00:11:01.370 eventually, this success does allow him to retire 00:11:01.370 --> 00:11:04.110 from medicine. He transitions to writing full 00:11:04.110 --> 00:11:07.750 -time. And his next move is what I think elevates 00:11:07.750 --> 00:11:10.629 him from a successful novelist to a critical 00:11:10.629 --> 00:11:13.990 cultural voice. If we connect this to the bigger 00:11:13.990 --> 00:11:17.629 picture, Hosseini realized that his male protagonist, 00:11:17.889 --> 00:11:21.350 Amir, only captured one specific privileged sliver 00:11:21.350 --> 00:11:23.230 of the Afghan experience. Right. It was very 00:11:23.230 --> 00:11:25.029 close to his own experience. Yes. And he could 00:11:25.029 --> 00:11:26.909 have easily written a sequel to The Kite Runner 00:11:26.909 --> 00:11:29.470 and cashed in on the exact same formula. The 00:11:29.470 --> 00:11:30.830 publishing world would have loved that. Oh, they 00:11:30.830 --> 00:11:32.909 would have eaten it up. But instead, to truly 00:11:32.909 --> 00:11:35.870 foster global empathy, he recognized that he 00:11:35.870 --> 00:11:38.659 had to de -center his own demographic. He shifts 00:11:38.659 --> 00:11:41.700 his lens entirely for his second book, A Thousand 00:11:41.700 --> 00:11:45.179 Splendid Suns. Yes. Released in 2007, this story 00:11:45.179 --> 00:11:47.759 centers entirely on the experiences of two women, 00:11:47.980 --> 00:11:51.039 Maryam and Layla. By doing this, Hosseini forced 00:11:51.039 --> 00:11:53.740 the global reading public to examine Afghanistan's 00:11:53.740 --> 00:11:56.580 tumultuous 30 -year transition from the secular 00:11:56.580 --> 00:11:59.580 Soviet occupation through the chaotic civil war 00:11:59.580 --> 00:12:01.980 of the Mujahideen and into the oppressive rise 00:12:01.980 --> 00:12:04.820 of Taliban control. But he did it from a heavily 00:12:04.820 --> 00:12:06.759 marginalized viewpoint. And the mechanics of 00:12:06.759 --> 00:12:09.039 that are brilliant, because the political regime 00:12:09.039 --> 00:12:11.779 changes in Afghanistan weren't just abstract 00:12:11.779 --> 00:12:14.840 policy shit. Right, no. They dictated whether 00:12:14.840 --> 00:12:17.700 a woman could walk outside, whether she could 00:12:17.700 --> 00:12:19.740 see a doctor, whether she could learn to read. 00:12:20.279 --> 00:12:22.759 By filtering the historical narrative through 00:12:22.759 --> 00:12:24.940 the lives of women who were literally trapped 00:12:24.940 --> 00:12:27.440 inside their homes by these shifting geopolitical 00:12:27.440 --> 00:12:30.519 forces, the tragedy becomes claustrophobic. It 00:12:30.519 --> 00:12:33.120 does. It makes it intensely real for the reader. 00:12:33.340 --> 00:12:36.779 Exactly. He is translating vast historical trauma 00:12:36.779 --> 00:12:40.320 into intimate domestic agony. And the impact 00:12:40.320 --> 00:12:43.659 was undeniable. That book spent another 103 weeks 00:12:43.659 --> 00:12:46.600 on the bestseller list. He then expanded the 00:12:46.600 --> 00:12:49.799 lens even further with his 2013 novel, and the 00:12:49.799 --> 00:12:53.049 mountains echoed. There, he zooms out to explore 00:12:53.049 --> 00:12:55.909 multi -generational family dynamics, looking 00:12:55.909 --> 00:12:58.710 at the ways siblings betray and sacrifice for 00:12:58.710 --> 00:13:02.129 each other across decades and continents. It's 00:13:02.129 --> 00:13:05.309 like he's slowly turning a gem, you know, forcing 00:13:05.309 --> 00:13:08.389 us to look at every single facet of the Afghan 00:13:08.389 --> 00:13:10.909 diaspora. That's a great way to put it. But retiring 00:13:10.909 --> 00:13:13.190 from his medical practice didn't mean he abandoned 00:13:13.190 --> 00:13:15.690 his underlying desire to heal people, did it? 00:13:15.850 --> 00:13:18.629 He just changed his methodology. That's a crucial 00:13:18.629 --> 00:13:21.580 point. His humanitarian The impulse simply scaled 00:13:21.580 --> 00:13:24.070 up. He was appointed as a goodwill envoy for 00:13:24.070 --> 00:13:26.529 the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, 00:13:26.710 --> 00:13:29.669 the UNHCR. Wow. He also established the Khalid 00:13:29.669 --> 00:13:31.970 Hosseini Foundation. So he's moving beyond raising 00:13:31.970 --> 00:13:34.409 awareness to actually delivering humanitarian 00:13:34.409 --> 00:13:37.289 aid, providing economic opportunities and building 00:13:37.289 --> 00:13:39.990 shelters for refugee families returning to Afghanistan. 00:13:40.230 --> 00:13:42.669 He takes the abstract empathy generated by his 00:13:42.669 --> 00:13:44.870 art and turns it into literal books and mortar. 00:13:45.149 --> 00:13:47.509 Exactly. Where we see those two worlds. The art 00:13:47.509 --> 00:13:50.350 and the activism collide directly in 2018. Yes, 00:13:50.350 --> 00:13:52.460 with the publication of C. I remember when that 00:13:52.460 --> 00:13:54.720 came out. It was a short, illustrated story, 00:13:55.080 --> 00:13:57.639 but the motivation behind it was just devastating. 00:13:57.840 --> 00:14:00.379 It was a direct response to the Syrian refugee 00:14:00.379 --> 00:14:03.100 crisis. Specifically, it was motivated by the 00:14:03.100 --> 00:14:06.159 tragic drowning of Alan Kurdi. The little boy. 00:14:06.340 --> 00:14:08.720 Yes, the three -year -old Syrian boy whose body 00:14:08.720 --> 00:14:10.960 washed up on a Turkish beach while his family 00:14:10.960 --> 00:14:13.799 was trying to reach safety in Europe. Hosseini 00:14:13.799 --> 00:14:16.460 channeled the global heartbreak of that specific, 00:14:16.799 --> 00:14:19.440 terrible image into sea prayer, and he directed 00:14:19.440 --> 00:14:22.639 the proceeds right back to the UNHCR. To fund 00:14:22.639 --> 00:14:25.799 actual rescue and relief efforts. Exactly. So 00:14:25.799 --> 00:14:27.840 what does this all mean for us, for you listening 00:14:27.840 --> 00:14:30.340 right now? When you look at his trajectory and 00:14:30.340 --> 00:14:32.539 his personal life, I think it points out how 00:14:32.539 --> 00:14:35.940 incredibly refreshing it is to see someone completely 00:14:35.940 --> 00:14:38.840 refuse to be boxed into a single identity. Yes, 00:14:39.120 --> 00:14:41.139 absolutely. We spend so much of our lives trying 00:14:41.139 --> 00:14:44.100 to fit neatly into one demographic or one professional 00:14:44.100 --> 00:14:47.750 category. But Hosseini's life is a tapestry of 00:14:47.750 --> 00:14:50.169 contradictions. His personal background is remarkably 00:14:50.169 --> 00:14:52.669 fluid. He describes his own ethnicity by saying, 00:14:52.850 --> 00:14:56.029 I'm not pure anything, noting his mixed Pashtun 00:14:56.029 --> 00:14:59.289 and Tajik descent. And he is fluent in both Persian 00:14:59.289 --> 00:15:02.149 and Pashto. And look at his cultural influences. 00:15:02.830 --> 00:15:05.649 He was raised reading the deeply philosophical, 00:15:05.649 --> 00:15:07.970 spiritual works of classical Persian poets like 00:15:07.970 --> 00:15:11.509 Rumi and Hafez. But alongside Rumi, he was devouring 00:15:11.509 --> 00:15:14.110 a Persian translation of Jacqueline's White Fang, 00:15:14.509 --> 00:15:16.950 Alice in Wonderland, and Mickey Spillane's gritty, 00:15:17.129 --> 00:15:19.590 hard -boiled detective series, Mike Hammer. It's 00:15:19.590 --> 00:15:21.509 quite the reading list. Right. And musically, 00:15:21.669 --> 00:15:24.330 he was obsessed with Ahmad Zahir, the Afghan 00:15:24.330 --> 00:15:28.740 Elvis. It is... wonderfully chaotic blend of 00:15:28.740 --> 00:15:32.000 Eastern philosophy, Western pulp fiction, and 00:15:32.000 --> 00:15:34.600 pop culture. It is. And he carries that embrace 00:15:34.600 --> 00:15:37.620 of complexity into his modern life too. He describes 00:15:37.620 --> 00:15:41.610 himself as a secular Muslim Yet in 2022, he very 00:15:41.610 --> 00:15:44.230 publicly and proudly used his platform to announce 00:15:44.230 --> 00:15:47.250 that his 21 year old child had come out as transgender. 00:15:47.450 --> 00:15:49.769 Expressing nothing but unconditional love and 00:15:49.769 --> 00:15:52.190 support. Exactly. He just consistently defies 00:15:52.190 --> 00:15:54.149 expectations. And this raises an important question 00:15:54.149 --> 00:15:56.750 about the nature of influence. You know, Hosseini's 00:15:56.750 --> 00:15:58.929 effectiveness as a humanitarian and a writer 00:15:58.929 --> 00:16:01.610 doesn't happen in spite of these overlapping, 00:16:01.909 --> 00:16:03.990 sometimes contradictory identities. It happens 00:16:03.990 --> 00:16:07.379 precisely because of them. He belongs to so many 00:16:07.379 --> 00:16:10.139 different worlds. He knows the privileged life 00:16:10.139 --> 00:16:13.340 of a diplomat's son. He knows the terror of the 00:16:13.340 --> 00:16:16.519 refugee, the clinical detachment of the physician, 00:16:16.559 --> 00:16:19.700 and the influence of the literary elite. Because 00:16:19.700 --> 00:16:22.399 his identity is so fluid, he acts as the ultimate 00:16:22.399 --> 00:16:25.240 bridge. He connects them all. He can translate 00:16:25.240 --> 00:16:28.220 the acute pain of one marginalized world into 00:16:28.220 --> 00:16:30.740 the emotional language of another. And he does 00:16:30.740 --> 00:16:33.960 it so seamlessly that the whole world stops to 00:16:33.960 --> 00:16:36.149 listen. Which brings us right back to where we 00:16:36.149 --> 00:16:38.830 started. The medical charts and the Persian tapestries 00:16:38.830 --> 00:16:40.990 hanging in the same room. None of it is out of 00:16:40.990 --> 00:16:44.070 place. It all builds the empathy machine that 00:16:44.070 --> 00:16:46.669 is his writing. It does. And as we wrap up our 00:16:46.669 --> 00:16:49.090 analysis of his work, it leaves us with a provocative 00:16:49.090 --> 00:16:51.450 final thought for our current moment. Okay, let's 00:16:51.450 --> 00:16:53.809 hear it. Well, The Kite Runner was published 00:16:53.809 --> 00:16:57.879 in 2003. It was an era where a single deeply 00:16:57.879 --> 00:17:00.279 evocative novel could capture the world's attention 00:17:00.279 --> 00:17:03.279 for a hundred weeks and fundamentally shift global 00:17:03.279 --> 00:17:05.480 empathy toward a misunderstood region. Yeah, 00:17:05.500 --> 00:17:07.819 that was a different time. Today, we live in 00:17:07.819 --> 00:17:10.799 an era of hyper fragmented media, TikTok algorithms 00:17:10.799 --> 00:17:13.640 and 15 second news cycles. Everything is so fast. 00:17:13.920 --> 00:17:16.880 Exactly. So as new geopolitical crises displace 00:17:16.880 --> 00:17:19.380 entirely new generations of refugees right now, 00:17:19.660 --> 00:17:22.910 we have to wonder. Will our modern media consumption 00:17:22.910 --> 00:17:25.569 even allow the next Khaled Hosseini to break 00:17:25.569 --> 00:17:28.509 through? Or have we lost the collective attention 00:17:28.509 --> 00:17:30.910 span required for a long -form novel to change 00:17:30.910 --> 00:17:33.710 how the world views a war? And beyond that, we 00:17:33.710 --> 00:17:37.349 often view career detours as wasted time. But 00:17:37.349 --> 00:17:39.609 looking at his 10 plus years in medicine that 00:17:39.609 --> 00:17:42.130 arranged marriage, we have to wonder, would he 00:17:42.130 --> 00:17:44.569 have possessed the clinical eye for human suffering 00:17:44.569 --> 00:17:46.710 and the profound empathy required to write those 00:17:46.710 --> 00:17:49.589 books if he hadn't spent a decade quietly listening 00:17:49.589 --> 00:17:53.049 to patients' pain first? Perhaps the wrong path 00:17:53.049 --> 00:17:55.630 is sometimes the exact prerequisite for our true 00:17:55.630 --> 00:17:58.329 calling. That is a heavy, essential question. 00:17:58.789 --> 00:18:01.390 Are we moving too fast to let empathy take root 00:18:01.390 --> 00:18:04.309 the way it did with Hoseni's work? It's absolutely 00:18:04.309 --> 00:18:06.599 something you should mull over today. Thank you 00:18:06.599 --> 00:18:08.779 so much for joining us on this deep dive. We 00:18:08.779 --> 00:18:10.400 highly encourage you to step away from the short 00:18:10.400 --> 00:18:12.859 form feeds, pick up one of Hosseini's books, 00:18:13.240 --> 00:18:15.259 and explore the beautiful complex history of 00:18:15.259 --> 00:18:17.779 Afghanistan for yourself. Keep digging deeper, 00:18:18.059 --> 00:18:18.900 and we'll catch you next time.