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　　「A Thousand Splendid Suns」是我非常喜歡的一本小說，想和大家一起分享。作者Khaled Hosseini來自阿富汗，他另一本小說「The Kite Runner」 (追風箏的孩子)，也是一本暢銷書，已被拍成電影。電影我也看了，感覺上小說的敘述比電影強很多，兩小時的電影，被過度濃縮，很多非常動人的情感沒有表達出來。當然，電影也很好看，只是看過小說後，再看電影，會覺得情節過於省略。「The Kite Runner」全書的主要角色都是男性，作者把父子、主僕、兄弟之間的誤解、理解與愛，描繪得絲絲入扣，讓人不想掉淚都很難。
　　作者的網站：www.khaledhosseini，如果有興趣，可以去拜訪。
　　「The Kite Runner」寫男，「A Thousand Splendid Suns」寫女，作者對於兩性的書寫，可謂高手。
　「A Thousand Splendid Suns」出版不久，即躍登全美暢銷書排行榜第一名，雖然我們選書，不能盡信排行榜，但是一書本能暢銷，總有它迷人的地方。
　　讀完這本小說，稍微了解一點阿富汗的習俗、文化，也彷彿瀏覽了阿富汗近四十年來的變遷。外侵、內亂、軍閥割據、專制獨裁，戰爭背景，和我們的近代史也頗類似。作者以悲憫的角度，述說兩個女人的不幸與堅強，這是一個非常哀傷的故事，阿富汗的女人所承受的悲哀，是我們難以想像的。兩個女主角，Mariam 和Laila 的年紀相當於我和我女兒的年齡，卻在不得已的情況下嫁給一個殘暴的老頭，兩個女人的個性、冷戰、友誼、親情，每一段細節，都令人感動。
　　節錄一小段我很喜歡卻很傷感的文字，與你共享
　Mariam did not sleep that night. She sat in bed, watched the snow falling soundlessly.Seasons had come and gone; presidents in Kabul had been inaugurated and murdered; an empire had been defeated; old wars ended and new ones had broken out. But Mariam had hardly noticed, hardly cared. She had passed these years in a distant corner of her mind. A dry, barren field, out beyond wish and lament, beyond dream and disillusionment. There, the future did not matter. And the past held only this wisdom: that love was a damaging mistake, and its accomplice, hope, a treacherous illusion. And whenever those twin poisonous flowers began to sprout in the parched land of that field, Mariam uprooted them. She uprooted them and ditched them before they took hold.
But somehow, over these last months, Laila and Aziza-- a harami like herself, as it turned out—had become extension of her, and now, without them, the life Mariam had tolerated for so long suddenly seemed intolerable.
We’re leaving this spring, Aziza and I. Come with us, Mariam
The years had not been kind to Mariam. But perhaps, she thought, there were kinder years waiting still.
　　看完這本書，我只想說一句話，我們都是很幸福的女人。
　　這本書台灣已經有翻譯版，聽說翻得不錯。書名：「燦爛千陽」，如果你人在台灣，又有興趣看，不妨到書店找一找。