Khaled Hosseini’s A Thousand Splendid Suns stood poised for overwhelming success even before its publication last week. The author’s first novel, The Kite Runner, sold more than three million copies worldwide, was published in forty countries, and the movie version is scheduled for release in November. Film rights to A Thousand Splendid Suns have already been sold, and publisher Riverhead has invested in a first printing of more than 500,000 copies. Perhaps not Potter-mania, but in an age of declining readership for adult novels, this represents a major literary event.

As in The Kite Runner, Hosseini relies on the turbulent events of the past thirty years of Afghan history as backdrop for his story. The events lend themselves easily to dramatic treatment – the coups of the 1970s, the Soviet occupation in 1979, the troop withdrawal ten years later, the resulting civil wars and the rise of the Taliban, and its eventual collapse in the aftermath of U.S. intervention. Against this tapestry of violence, tyranny and oppression, Hosseini tells the tales of two women, Mariam and Laila.

Mariam, the illegitimate child of a Herat businessman, is forced into a loveless marriage at age fifteen to a middle-aged Kabul shoemaker, Rasheed. He demands absolute obedience from his spouse, as well as strict observance of Islamic customs restricting the movement, appearance and attire of women. In the early years of their marriage, Rasheed’s mandates run counter to the modernizing forces in Kabul, where many women hold professional jobs, teach at the university, or run for public office. But with the rise of the Taliban, a whole society falls into lockstep with these dictates of Sharia, traditional Muslim law.

Laila, a woman young enough to be Mariam’s daughter, becomes a reluctant member of this household, when her parents are killed in a bombing, and all her friends have either died or departed from Kabul. Rasheed takes her on as a second wife, and his bullying and overbearing behavior grow all the worse as the two women band together to resist his authoritarian control over their lives.

The novel traces the trials and tribulations of Mariam and Laila as they struggle for survival, and eventually plan for a daring escape attempt that puts them at odds not only with Rasheed, but with an entire society that sees them as little more than chattel. Hosseini skillfully develops the complexities and predicaments of his plot, which constantly intersects with political and social events in recent Afghan history.