Wednesday December 31 | Author of “The Kite Runner”
December 26, 2008 at 11:31 am | Posted in Coming Up | 2 Comments
The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns captured the attention of readers worldwide telling stories set in Afghanistan, helping us to understand this war torn country and its people. Join us for a conversation with author Khaled Hosseini.
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Khaled Hosseini – Author of The Kite Runner
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Charlotte Talks 
[…] Wednesday December 31 | Author of “The Kite Runner”The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns captured the attention of readers worldwide telling stories set in Afghanistan, helping us to understand this war torn country and its people. Join us for a conversation with author Khaled . […]
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Khaled Hosseini is an exceptional caring person, even more than a gifted writer, but this show serves more to demonstrate the unique talents and concerned empathy of Mike Collins. As he guides the discussion via questions, comments and procedure he exhibits his gifts of insight, careful preparation and a lifelong idle curiosity that has triumphed over circumstance.
Think how Mike has existed in a world of crass competition and superficiality, the commercial radio and TV milieu. He long worked within a stringent format that restricted his better angels. It’s much different than Diane Rehm, who started out as a volunteer in public radio, and pioneered her distinct personal approach to guests and issues. Meanwhile Mike experienced business success as a programming manager and a shaper of other people’s careers. Mike’s long submergence under business considerations indicates that he must have been inculcated with a great respect for the collective human mind and for the point of view of others at an early age, and that his personality includes uncommon creative gifts. He is an especially versatile lifelong learner.
This interview remains personal before a large studio audience in an arena setting. It is fascinating how Mike draws out Hosseini’s account of his development and experiences as a writer while simultaneously facilitating the placement of his stories within the Afghanistani tragedy.
He highlights the grassroots level intellectuality that brought these two novels to prominence, so that he never has to emphasize how
well they are written. There is a subtext of discussion that even Collins may not consciously acknowledge.
In every society their are natural intellectuals like Husseini and Collins. In many, or most societies, there are repressive forces that make their compelled expression impossible. Even in the United States our thought is crippled by materialistic excess and our own brand of talibanistic forces. Many creative people are bullied, coerced and shamed out of self-expression. It can be as mundane as Garrison Keilor’s character Bob, a young artist, who is never taken seriously by his family or community, or as dramatic as the repression in China of a professor who discusses the crippling effects of Chinese feudalism in recent history. In a world where journalists are targeted for death and human trafficking is a growing business, good and bad actions are easily distinguished. But a major problem arises in subtler settings of meaningful thought where sensationalism is undesirable. It takes a Mike Collins guiding worthy guests to make these quieter, but vital, messages heard.
Comment by Jack Martin— December 31, 2008 #