Khaled Hosseini

Khaled Hosseini was born in Kabul, Afghanistan, in 1965. His father was a diplomat with the Afghan Foreign Ministry and his mother taught Farsi and History in high school in Kabul. In 1976, the Afghan Foreign Ministry relocated the Hosseini family to Paris. They were ready to return to Kabul in 1980, but by then Afghanistan had already witnessed a bloody communist coup and an invasion by the Soviet army. The Hosseinis sought and were granted political asylum in the United States. In September of 1980, the Hosseini family moved to San Jose, California. Khaled graduated from high school in 1984 and enrolled at Santa Clara University where he earned a Bachelor of Science degree in Biology in 1988. The following year, he entered the University of California at San Diego's School of Medicine, where he earned a Medical Degree in 1993. He completed his residency at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles. Khaled was a practicing internist between 1996 and 2004.

While practicing medicine, Khaled began writing his first novel, The Kite Runner, in March of 2001. In 2003, The Kite Runner, was published and has since become an international bestseller, published in 70 countries. In 2006 he was named a Goodwill Envoy to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the UN Refugee Agency. His second novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns was published in May of 2007 and has been published in 60 countries.

Khaled has been working to provide humanitarian assistance to the people of Afghanistan through The Khaled Hosseini Foundation. The concept for The Khaled Hosseini Foundation was inspired by a trip to Afghanistan Khaled made in 2007 with the UNHCR. Khaled returned to Afghanistan with the UNHCR in 2009. He lives in Northern California.