"From very early on it was important to him that I liked the film," Hosseini says about Forster, whose credits include Monster’s Ball and Finding Neverland.

But as the credits began to roll, Hosseini was flung thrown into the story -- "the old fashioned narrative" as he describes it. After the screening Hosseini went and hugged the filmmaker. "I told him, I recognized my characters, my story and the emotions of the tale are on the screen," he adds.

The Kite Runner is a part-autobiographical, debut novel by the 42 year-old writer and a trained physician, who was born in Afghanistan, but has spent most of his teenage and adult life in the west, especially in the US. Forster's film will open in the US on December 14, in time to qualify for the 2007 Oscar race. The film stars Afghan, Iranian and Arab actors and was shot in China, Afghanistan and in the US.

Hosseini thinks that The Kite Runner is a unique film for a number of reasons. This fall there are two Hollywood films in theaters that deal with President George Bush's war on terror in Afghanistan -- Robert Redford's Lions for Lambs and Mike Nichols' Charlie Wilson's War. The Kite Runner is the first Hollywood production about Afghanistan that does not deal with terrorism. It may also be the first Hollywood film where all the characters are Muslims.

The Kite Runner is about Afghan people -- their personal struggles, their memories, friendships between children, and the universal themes of loyalty, betrayal and atonement. And unlike other Hollywood films that are based in foreign lands, there are no western characters to buffer the audience again this world.

Text: Aseem Chhabra

In the picture: (From Left to right) Ahmad Khan Mahmoodzada as Hassan and Zekiria Ebrahimi as Amir star in The Kite Runner.

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