world war iii. it could be appropriate to visit some of those things in what would be a more complex situation. >> booktv continues how with hosani talking about travels around afghanistan and relief work done there with the nation's high commissioner for refugees. this is about an hour. [applause] >> thank you, all, thank you, just beautiful, beautiful synagogue is such an extraordinary setting, and to see all of you here to really acclaim this amazing book. >> thank you, thank you. >> it is a work of fiction, but res gnat for those of us who -- resinates or imagine spending time in afghanistan so even

though unlike your first two novels, this is less as you've described it, less afghan-centric. >> right. .. >> part of that is because as i wrote the novel, i saw the characters' struggles playing out on a more personal, intimate level, it was more of a human drama and not necessarily

playing out on the big kind of political arena. but there are, certainly, characters in this book whose lives are seriously impacted by the events in afghanistan, by the taliban, by the in-fighting in afghanistan and so on and so forth. it's just not quite as forceful of an impact. part of it is because i, it's sort of my small way to attempt to try and change the conversation a little bit about afghanistan. i felt like i dealt with those things quite a bit my first, first two books, and it's nice to have a conversation about afghanistan and talk about characters, a relationship between a brother and sister, parent and child, talk about your complicated feelings about wealth and so on and so forth rather than the war and the fighting and so on and so forth. >> i read that you said that this is a love story and, clearly, the relationship between pari and abdullah, the

sibling relationship is rooted in in the fierce love -- in this fierce love. but there is so much heartbreak and sacrifice and betrayal. talk about the family and the sibling relationships are clearly central in all of these parallel lives. >> right. >> but there's also the father and child and the sacrificing of children first in thal gory with which -- theal gory with which you open, sacrificing the child to the devil, but, of course, the heartbreak that follows. >> yeah. the novel is sort of shaped like a tree. at the heart of the novel is this, yeah, a love story between a boy who's 10 years old and his 3-year-old sister. we meet them first in the early 1950s. they've been in an impoverished, remote village in afghanistan, and they're on their way to kabul with their father, they're kind of trekking across this

desert. and neither child knows what's in store for them in kabul. when they do get to kabul, something rather dramatic happens that splits this beautiful relationship between the brother and his beloved little sister, and they're separated. and it's a separation that devastates both in very unique and specific ways. and from there the story just spreads out, spreads other places to other characters. there's one actor in the novel that has echoes, that why the word echo is there, because it's essential in the book that ripples across time, generations and affects the life of many of the characters. but at core it's a family story, and it's a love story just like you said. and it's love between brothers and sisters, between father and daughter, it's with cousins. it's between -- i'm interested in manifestations of love that are kind of different from the usual when we hear the word

love, there's sort of a romantic notion of man meets woman, they fall in love. i'm sort of disinclined to write that as a kind of dramatic motive. i'm very interested in love that blossoms in places where you wouldn't expect it between two people who have an unlikely, unlikely, deep, meaningful relationship under difficult circumstances. >> and and so many of these relationships of love also involve care giving. >> yeah. >> first between the twin sisters, then between -- [inaudible] what is it about that role of care giving that also inspires you to want to create these characters? >> well, it's, again, it's a manifestation of love that is something that you don't immediately think about when you think about love. meeting somebody, falling in love, going on a date, that sort of thing. but it turns out that love is a

lot of work, and it's tiring, and it tests your patience. and it's complicated. you know, when my father became sick and the last year and a half, two years of his life were very difficult. and as he gradually lost his faculties and became increasingly dependent, i saw my mother so bravely take care of him, and she dedicated her entire life to caring after him, to feeding him, to doing all the things that -- and i saw in that this beautiful just rock solid expression of love that i'd never seen. and that kind of expression of love, writing about that really, to me, is very appealing because it's enduring, it's meaningful, it's deep, and i find it very touching, very moving. >> you said that you were inspired by the william blake poem, and the idea of the

children's voices echoing in the mountains. what about that poem captured your imagination? >> well, i had written the whole novel, and i kept waiting for a title which never came and began to seriously worry. [laughter] i would e-mail my editor ask say i still don't have a title, and, you know, what am i going to do? so i started researching poems about children because this book in some ways really is about children. and i found this lovely poem by william blake called the nurse's song, and there was a verse and one of the last lines was "and all the hills echoed." and then i saw alan ginsburg on youtube singing that -- >> alan ginsburg singing? >> yeah. [laughter] >> that's extraordinary. [laughter] >> yeah. chanted that last line over and over, and i taught it was such an evocative phrase, and it really just kind of struck me. i thought i would play with that

title, and i talked to my editor, sarah mcgrath, and we played around it and changed hills to mountains, for obvious reasons, but also because the mountains are so recurring in this novel. but mostly for the word "echo," because a i mentioned earlier, there's an event that happens early in the book and echoes out and has a deep impact on the lives of a great number of characters, each of whom are then given a chance to voice their perspective. and so the novel is composed like a series of, like a mosaic, like a series of vignettes that all are interlocked and create collectively one big picture. >> there is a scene, the massacre, the family massacre involving rushi, is that the correct -- >> roshi, yes. >> and the complexity of the

moral choices made by those who come to afghanistan making promises and then the doctor returns to california. can you -- >> well, there's a chapter in this book where there's a, an afghan ex-pat. he's a physician living in, well, in northern california -- [laughter] who's been away for 20 some odd years. who returns to afghanistan after the fall of the taliban and has a very difficult experience there. for one thing, when he arrives there, he feels out of place. he feels like this place used to be his home but really is no longer. the experiences of the people on the street have bypassed him. he has not shared in the struggles and the toil and the wars and all the horrific things that have happened there. so he's not sure how to connect with the people, he's not sure how to interact with them, he's

not sure what is the proper way to engage with the locals where, you know, his own people. so he feels a little bit like a fish out of water. and then he meets this young girl named roshi who's been brutally, brutally injured. and he meets her in a hospital. and something about this little girl awakens something in him. and this sort of dormant philanthropic impulse in him. and he becomes very attached to in this little girl and decides that he's going to help her. and, of course, then he returns home, and he learns a kind of a difficult lesson about the limits of his own powers, about the, how complicated generosity really is. about the strenuous and difficult nature of actual kindness, about charity.

and so he become -- it becomes kind of a morality tale. and, you know, it's something that i've thought about a lot when i go to afghanistan. when i first went to kabul, my impulse was to help everybody, you know? i was very careful not to promise anything to anyone, but i just wanted to help everybody on the street. and then when i came to, back home, i realized that that's just human impulse, that's just emotion speaking and that to actually want to help people, you know, you have to be, you know, organized, and you have to think, you know, it takes time, it takes patience, it takes work, it takes perseverance and so on and so forth. so anyway, sort of some of the themes in that story. >> in fact, you have the khaled husseini foundation which we saw in the film. your work as a u.n. envoy. there is this impulse to try to find a structure. >> yeah. >> for the need to help. >> yeah.

oh, absolutely. i mean, i, i have made it abundantly clear that one of the reasons i started my foundation was i had overwhelming guilt when i went to afghanistan. when i went to kabul and i saw, i thought about it -- and this is the, this is the insight of a 12-year-old, perhaps. it's not particularly deep, but that doesn't make it untrue. when i went there, i just felt very guilty because my life so charmed. this was before the publication of my books and so on. i've led a life of complete privilege. and yet i saw these people on the street, and i realize the only thing separating me from that man selling chewing gum on the street corner in kabul is genetics. if i'd been born in his family, i would have probably have been in a refugee camp in pakistan, and i wouldn't be where i am. that's really what it boils down to. so deep inside there's this kind of gnawing feeling of unearned

privilege. so that creates this kind of feeling of survivor's guilt which i know other afghans feel as well. so my foundation, other reasons as well, bun of the reasons why -- but one of the reasons why i started it was to turn something i found was a negative emotion into something positive, productive and as a vehicle to do something that, hopefully, was enduring, would make a difference in the life of people who i've written about in my books. that's the point of my foundation, to help people just like my characters, the widows, the orphans, the elderly, the sick, downtrodden, vulnerable people. >> having just recently been there and with secretary kerry and, of course, the president gave a speech which is largely motivated by the necessity to reframe our relationship with afghanistan and the region as we begin withdrawing, what is your perspective going forward? do you see this, it's supposed

to be a landmark election, as conceivably being the first truly free election of a handing off of power and successful withdrawal? can afghanistan stand on its own? >> well, i think -- >> militarily? >> that's the very big question facing afghanistan. i don't think anybody knows the answer to that. i don't think the afghan people certainly don't know. i would describe the upcoming few years as a time of uncertainty in the minds of many afghans, certainly those that i've spoken to. there are some who are convinced -- i happen to be not among them -- but there's a repsychiatry mate -- legitimate argument that some make that the doom's day scenario is coming. the doom's day scenario not even being the takeover by the taliban, but what happened before the taliban which is all-out militia warfare. there are people who believe that will happen. i happen to think, maybe it's

wishful thinking, but i happen to think it won't, hopefully, and that the parties that were involved in those civil wars hopefully have learned lessons about the benefits of peace, the men with fits of a peaceful country. but it's certainly the bogeyman that every afghan right now is terrified, a return to the chaos, rampant violence with impunity of the 1990s. >> one of the recurring themes in my work is the women of afghanistan, their efforts at self-determination, at education, the things that americans have done. but the things that afghans have done for themselves. >> yeah. >> and women business leaders who are extraordinary, they are very worried about the fragility of their, the legal rights that they have won. >> yeah. they are. >> intervention. >> i mean, things for women in afghanistan have improved in

pockets. you know, i think if you were to go to a remote village say in the south of afghanistan, you wouldn't know what year it really is. it could still be 1999, or it could be 1950. so things haven't changed all that much. but i think in urban regions like ca -- kabul, things have improved. women, you know, there have been significant advances in the field of women's rights. there's a female provincial governor in afghanistan. that would have been unthinkable 12 years ago before september 11th, women serving in the lower house of the parliament. but i, like you and those women business leaders in afghanistan, do worry, you know? i think, i think that the role of women in afghan society has got talk about preserve -- has got to be preserved. women's rights has to be one of

the cornerstones of national rebuilding if afghanistan has any chance of being a prosperous, peaceful nation in the future. the way to lift yourself out of poverty is to empower your women. and if you shut 50% of the population off the public sector, they're imprisoned in their homes, you're really doomed. so i'm hoping that that is not a bargaining chip at the negotiation table whenever negotiation happens. >> i think people would want to know how you go about your writing, how the creative process works. with you. >> well, it's very disorganized, you know? many. [laughter] i know writers who with outline their entire novels. they spend a lot of time outlining every chapter, and then they just spend three months writing their book. and in some way i envy that, but it doesn't work for me. i just start writing. i start with a, you know, this novel, my latest book, began

with just a very, very simple but clear and vividly sort of delivered picture which was there was a guy walking across a desert, and he was pulling one of those little red radio flyer wagons, and there was this cute little girl, about 3 years old, in the wagon, and about ten steps behind was a boy, and he was following them. i had no idea who these three people were, where they were going, but this image completely possessed me, and i became absolutely convinced that there's something in this picture that is very moving, dramatic and impelling, and i have to figure out what it is. and it just kept snowballing and snowballing to the point where this book became, in many ways, my most sweeping book really with the largest cast of characters, the largest number of locales. and also, i think, more ambitious and bigger in a thematic way than either one of by previous two books. but it just kind of snowballed, and i didn't plan any of it.

i had no idea where the book was going, zero, and i never know how my books are going to end. so i end up writing multiple drafts, and i end up having revelations, you know, epiphanies and little sudden bits of insight about my characters with each subsequent draft, so i keep remolding and remolding and rewriting it it's something that feels real and truthful to me. for instance, the dramatic example is in "the kite runner," i wrote an swire draft -- entire draft, and i had no idea that the two boys were related. i thought they were just -- i wrote a whole draft, and then i just thought of it. and it changed the whole tenor of the book. it became, suddenly, a much more powerful book, i think, because of that relationship. it was not planned. >> it's not an accident that one of your characters is a poet. >> right, right. >> poetry infuses this book. >> it does because it's in the afghan soul. i mean, if you go to afghanistan and you've been many times and

you talk to people, there's even a poetry in the way they express themselves, you know? even in remote villages people know poetry. they can recite suddenly verses. you know, when we were in school, we were obligated to memorize poetry and to be able to recite it from rote memory. even in the way people express themselves, it's a kind of a slightly poetic flavor to the way people speak. but i think the most vivid example is when i went to a palace in kabul which was built in the early 20th century by an afghan king and was this magnificent, massive, massive palace with gardens, massive columns and it was gorgeous, and it became sort of the battleground for all that militia fighting in the 1990 and ended up being, i think, the

perfect metaphor for what's happened in afghanistan, from splendor to absolute destitution. and be now it is just this hulking ruin with massive holes and snakes and scorpions everywhere. so i visited the palace, and i noticed that it was graffitid everywhere on the walls. and so much of the graffiti was poetry, you know? [laughter] and i was very touched by that. there was, you know, lines of classic poetry and, obviously, lines that have been, you know, sort of amateurish poetry, but a lot of it was poetry from curranic verses and so on -- but rannic verses and so on. and there was a character in the book, one of the afghans says to him why do you stay here, what do you like about our people? and even your from mity -- graffiti artists spray paint rumi, so that's why i love it here. >> what do you hope that people take away from this experience

of reading this book aside from the fact that it is so heartbreaking and so sweeping in its emotional grip? but is there -- >> so there's a real answer to that question, and then there's like the fake, noble answer to that question. [laughter] >> try the real one. >> you want the real one? >> yeah. >> okay. [laughter] the real answer is i want people to be deeply moved. i want people to read this book and recognize something of being human on this planet as they've come to understand it thus far in their life on the pages of this book. i want them to read something and say, you know, i know that experience, you know? i've had that. finish i know what he's talking about. and to be able to connect on that kind of a all level with -- human level with my writing. but the fake, noble answer -- i'll give it anyway -- would

have been, well, i want people to understand afghanistan better, you know? [laughter] that's, i happen to hope they do, but it's not the reason why i sat down the write. but i fully understand that fiction serves often a purpose and touches and reaches people in ways that the writer never really intended. and so my books have served as kind of a window into afghan history, afghan culture, afghan way of life. and i've given people, i think, kind of a more human dimension of this country that is so much on the news often for the same kinds of things over and over again. >> and often in the news for the worst possible reasons with war-weary america not understanding why we are there and what this commitment is. and what you have managed to do is create the universality of human experience. >> yeah, i think -- >> through these characters.

>> and i thank you for saying that. i think the first step towards empathy. not that i'm trying to generate empathy, but i think that's what literature kind of inherently does. i always use the example of dave edgar's book "what is the what," to make me feel truly what it must have been like to be a south sudanese refugee and trekking across the desert to make it into kenya and being attacked by wild animals and militias along the way. i felt a great sense of everyone hawaii for those boys just -- empathy for those boys just because of this book, this novel, and that's what literature is. fiction is for you to leap over the wall of self, and that's the great gift of reading is that you get to be somebody else for a while, you get to see the world lu their eyes, experience -- through their eyes, experience manager different and hopefully come to understand them better. >> well, we thank you for the gift that you've given us.

i know people have questions, and we've got the microphones, and our friends from politics and prose. we have organized it so, please, come down the aisles, and -- >> may i say, this is the loveliest venue -- >> isn't it? [laughter] >> it's gorgeous. i'm so thankful to be here. it's just beautiful here. >> and a perfect place, a perfect setting for us to be able to talk to you -- >> yes, absolutely. >> we thank you. >> hello. i'm still waiting to wake up. >> i'm sorry? >> i said i'm still waiting to wake up, i can't believe i'm face to face talking with you. >> oh, thank you. i taught you were waiting for me to wake up. [laughter] >> my name is deborah, and my friend and i are high school english teachers. and i don't have a question for you, i'd just like to tell you that, um, your remark about how

you may not be aware of how you've affected people just really sets in my heart because my friend and i were both, we spearheaded an effort to get "the kite runner" as part of our curriculum in northern maryland which was very successful. and i just want you to know that thousands of students have read your book, and it's changed tear lives from saying -- their lives from actually admitting this is the only book they've ever read -- [laughter] to passing it down to their siblings to changing prejudice and stereotypes. and i just wanted to let you know that, and we're forever grateful for that. >> oh, thank you very much. thank you. i'm not unaware of that -- [applause] i'm not aloof to that reality, and i get stacks of letters from students who say precisely what you said which is just a great honor. i'm just saying that that's not my intention when i go to write, you know? it's just something that's

happened, and i feel very honored by that. but thanks. >> hi. just to build off of that, i was equally as excited to read this book. i read it in nine hours, "the kite runner," i read it in nine hours during my first few months as a peace corps volunteer, and my host family thought i was nuts because i wouldn't eat until i finished this book. [laughter] that's how powerful it was. i work for the start empathy initiative where we're trying to encourage schools across the nation to adopt social and emotional intelligence as part of the rich fabric of education p. so i'd like, if you could, please, to describe the relationship between storytelling, the process of storytelling and empathy and how you might relate to each character and how you can get people to relate to these characters. >> well, i, if it's a conscious effort to force that particular dynamic, it's doomed to fail. i think the best way that i can achieve what you said is to get

down in what i'll many times call that mental bunker and just get as close as i can to my story, to my characters, try to understand hem -- them to my very core, try to inhabit them and let them behave in ways that surprise me, that feel spontaneous and real and allow the story to be as truthful and real to the extent of my abilities. and i think if a story is told that way, then it will have, you know, the kind of impact, you know, at least it has a chance to connect with people on a level that, you know, might change their mind about something, that might pick a positive impact -- make a positive impact and be illuminating in some fashion. but every time i've tried and i've win with a, quote-unquote agenda, it's always come across

as very to hem call, self-conscious, wooden, and i just see and hear myself on the pages which is the last thing i want to happen. >> i've been following you since your wrc days, ms. mitchell -- >> oh, my gosh. >> and thank you for a wonderful interview v. thank you. >> mr. hosseini, thank you for coming to washington. >> my pleasure. >> i'm sure i speak for many people about feeling a sense of sadness when i finish a book of yours. when you read a really, really good book, you're sad when it comes to an end, so i can't wait to read one. i wanted to ask you about your characters. what happens to them when you are finished writing a book? do they living with you? -- continue living with you? or do you set them free and let them live their lives independently? >> no, i did -- they live with me up until the time that i'm done. by which i mean when i've

written the final draft and we're done editing. so long as i'm actually even changing commas and working on -- they're with me. and by with me, not just when i'm writing, they're with me when i'm taking my son to his guitar lesson, they're with me when i'm waiting for my daughter to be finished swimming. they're constantly -- they live with me. and so they become very real to me, they become like real people, you know? it's a cliche, but they really occupy an actual space in my life. but once it's done and i'm done with the book, then they're gone. and i just let them -- because i know that they don't belong to me anywhere really because -- anymore really because everybody's going to have their own idea of these characters, and they're going to be out in the public, and people often take great ownership of them. i'll give you a very, i'll give you a very dramatic example of that. in my, when i wrote my first novel, there's a character named

sorob who's a boy that the main character goes and rescues out of afghanistan during the taliban and brings him back to the united states. and so i was doing a book signing, and this lady walked up to me and she said, she leaned over, she said how is sorob doing? [laughter] i said, oh. well, i kind of joked, and then i saw that she was serious -- [laughter] no, no, how is he doing? i said, well, you know, it's a novel. [laughter] he's not real. and she looked at me, and -- and i could tell she wasn't going to have it. [laughter] and she said, you just tell him i'm praying for him. [laughter] >> thank you. >> god bless you. thank you. [laughter] that's when i realized, you know, these characters don't belong to me anymore. [laughter] be. >> yes. >> hi. i've actually got an earlier question. one of by favorite lines from the book you say that the creative process is kind of

thievery -- >> oh. you're the first person who asked a question about the actual -- >> because i got the book when it came out, and i devoured it. [laughter] and i was wondering if that rings true to you, and you mentioned dave eggers and dave foster wallace, and if so, who do you steal from? >> oh, i don't mean that -- >> i don't mean actually steal. [laughter] >> no. so there's a section in the book that is set entirely as a magazine interview where a woman who, after an afghan woman a poet, and she's probably my favorite character in the whole novel -- >> mine too, yeah. >> is she really? >> she really is, because she's -- maybe i should just introduce her for a second. >> her name is nila -- >> she's very surprising to people who have a conception of afghan women and how repressed they've been -- >> yeah. >> -- legally and politically and physically because she is

such a modern woman. >> she's antithetical to everything that -- >> every stereotype. >> -- all the stereotypes of afghan women. we meet her in the '50s and again in the '70s when she's in her 40s. but she's a poet. she's a fiercely sexual creature. she's very brazen, very outspoken, extremely intelligence, insightful, a raging narcissist -- [laughter] and budding alcoholic, a terrible mother, a devoted mother -- [laughter] you know? and supremely talented and won't cower before anybody. so she's sort of this very interesting creature. i really loved writing her. but she's doing this interview with this guy, and the guy -- and she says, well, you know, writing is really an act of thievery. you scratch beneath any piece of beautiful writing, and you will find all manners of this honor, because writing involves taking things taha don't belong to

you -- take that don't belong to you. i'm not talking about plagiarism. >> right, exactly. >> what i'm saying is not taking mr. eggers' work, you know? that's ladies and gentlemennism. but what she means and what i mean as well is that you do, as horrible as it sounds, you can't write from a vacuum. you can't just make things up out of the blue. ultimately, you've heard something, you've seen something, you've been told something, you've observed something that struck you as very interesting, and you incorporate that into your writing. sometimes it's a tiny bit of somebody's personality, you know? and my characters very often are sort of composites of thing that i felt personally. so i feel from myself all the time, but also from other people that i've come across either in the course of my travels, people that i've met and little bits of them that are -- that i found very intriguing. every writer works that way. if they tell you they're not,

they're lying. it's just the way -- that's what she means. >> yeah. i just loved the way that you put that, and she's my favorite character too. >> thank you. thank you very much. >> hi. it came up in the introduction, and i was wondering if you think that your medical education and experience impacted your creative writing process, and if so, how? >> well, you know, i don't know -- the only thing that i can say is that it taught me, my medal training and residency at medical school taught me to work out sleeping a whole lot. [laughter] and it taught me -- >> try journalism. [laughter] >> true. and it taught me to persevere because there is a light at the end of the tunnel. you're going to get that medical degree someday. it just seems like it's way -- and it's the same with a novel. it's an act of perseverance. outside of that, you know, i really, i really compartmentalize my life very well. many some way writing ficti a w,

so -- which i was not very happy it wasow a profession that didnt fit with me very well.o i mean, i have tremendous respect for physicianso and for the profession itself, it just wasn't for me. and so i was kind of writing to escape that. so i kept those two parts of my life very separate. that said, if you go through my book, there's an awful lot of medical stuff happening. even in this new book. there's illnesses and so on. so my training does come in handy that i can use it to tell stories, but maybe that's the extent of it. >> thank you. >> hi. i'm wondering how your books have beeno received in afghanistan and if they've raised any controversy there? >> i think my first book did, not so much my second book and i doubt the third book will, you know? , politically it's probably the least political of my books. but, look, if you have lived in exile for over two decades and all this stuff has been

happening in your homeland and you decide to write a story about the people who live there, the people who actually live there read the story, and you can imagine that they will have opinions. and some of those opinions will be good, for me, and some not so good. so there are, my sense is that in urbanized, younger, more liberal professional afghans there was a very decent groundswell of support for my books because they talked about things that happened in afghanistan, they saw themselves in the pages of the book, and they're acting more open to discuss some of the issues that my novel raised particularly with regards to ethnic tension, so on and so forth. but i think the more, the older, bit more conservative, perhaps more religious members of the community have their differences with my books. not that the book wasn't adequate, accurate, but rather that the book was airing out dirty laundry that was best kept

quiet and within the family. and to me, this is completely antithetical to the whole idea of writing. if you're going to be afraid of subject matters and you want to shy away from topics for the fear of what somebody else is going to think, then you really shouldn't -- you have no business writing fiction because your job really is to write about things that upset people. not in a provocative way, but in things that people aren't comfortable talking about, create a dialogue. and my first book certainly did create dialogue in my community. quite a lot. >> thank you. >> other questions? oh, i was going to ask you about all of the controversy over war, targeted killings, the civilian casualties and real resentment of america. when you go back in the the

afghan community at large, do you find growing resentment despite all of the mutual sacrifices by americans and afghans to try to find some kind of peace? >> i think in my experience with people that i've spoken to in afghanistan, they have a nuanced view of the american involvement, and it's fairly are sophisticated. i think on the one hand afghans are deeply pragmatic people, and we all know that afghan has a moniker of great yard of empires, and everybody knows all that. so there's no history of welcoming foreign troops on the afghan soil. [laughter] you know, but at the same time i think among many afghans the nato and the u.s. presence has been seen in some way as a safeguard against a doom's day

scenario. against the country unraveling into pill shah war and -- militia war and the kind of chaos we saw in the 1990s. that's been expressioned to me -- expressed to me over and over again. i think early on through the campaign and into the 2000s there was fairly solid and part of afghans supported the presence of the foreign troops. that's been compromised to some extent in the last few years because of the things that you mentioned, because of targeted attacks that end up having, you know, causing collateral damage because of the night strikes, the night raids and the airstrikes, because of certain acts of cultural insensitivity that happened in afghanistan, you know, flushing of the quran and the urinating on the bodies, on the corporations of people and certainly sergeant bayles' massacre did not help at all. that was a disaster. so there's been a gradual erosion of that support. and yet even today despite

everything that's happened, i think many afghans do feel a sense of trepidation about the departure of the foreign troops. again, not because they like having foreigners on their land, but because they have -- and i think with some, you know, legitimacy -- concerns about how prepared the afghan state is, what kind of a state we have built in afghanistan and it hold together, can it do its primary job which is to protect its population? and that's kind of a, you know, a bit of a questionable notion right now, and the jury's out on how prepared the state is. >> and it's partly a sense that we have fairly or unfairly that political leadership has not grown to the task. >> yeah. >> karzai being the best example and his difficult relationship,

to put it mildly, with assorted american leaders. and others, we don't see candidates emerging, although apparently there will be a large field of candidate in this coming election. but we don't yet see the rise of home grown candidates who seem to be carrying the mantle of afghan leadership. >> yeah. and that's why this is a story that in this country right now, at least in the news doesn't get that much traction, but it's one i actually happen to think is pretty critical at least in the immediate future of afghanistan; is that we have presidential elections coming up and parliamentary elections in 2015. and i think the question who might win the election is important, but i think equally important is how they win it, you know? how are these elections carried out? if, are the elections going to be nonviolent?

i mean, are they going to be reasonably fair, at least in the perception of the afghan public? is the government that emerges from that election perceived by the afghans as having some legit macy? i think if the answer is no to those things, you know, i do worry tata that could be, you know, a trigger for political instability, divisiveness that potentially sort of unravels into violence. and in-fighting. so i think that's a critical, critical period coming up for afghanistan next year. >> you know, i know you have just brought out in this book, and i don't know whether you're already working on other ideas for your next book or could share -- >> if anybody has an idea out there for a book -- [laughter] now is the time to tell me, because i just want to survive

my book tour -- [laughter] and then maybe reopen my mind come this fall and see what happens next. >> you've written about fathers and sons and mothers and daughters and now siblings and generations of families, so should we assume that the family relationships are still the central inspiration -- >> yeah. it always speaks to me. and it's partly because -- and i've said this in the past to others, and it's because when i grew up in afghanistan, you know, in that society family, it's very, very difficult to overstate what an important role family plays in how you see yourself as a person. how you understand your place in the grand scheme of things, you know? i'm not just, you know, you don't see yourself necessarily as an isolated individual, but you see yourself as a son, you see yourself as a cousin, as a

brother, as a grandson. you, the family is how you make sense of your world and how you understand your identity. and so, and the fact that all the great themes of forget about literature, but all the great experiences of life are contained within this organism of family, you know? love, regret, forgiveness, contempt, in-fighting, reconciliation, duty, sacrifice, anything that -- to me, it's an endless source of fascination and one that has always spoken to me. so i don't know what happens next, but, you know, it's entirely possible. >> if you had been a girl -- [laughter] of your generation, would you have had the education and the opportunity? >> well, i happen to grow up in afghanistan, you know, fortunately got to see the final few years of an era of what many

afghans would call now the golden, the golden era. back when -- i remember how startled i was when i told somebody in france i was from afghanistan, and they had no idea where that was. they had never heard of it. and, you know, i feel privileged that i got to live through that period in retrospect, you know, before the taliban, before the soviets, before land mines, before drug trafficking, before bin laden. the country was beautiful, and it was at peace. and kabul was thriving. it was, it was -- there was culture, there was an influx of sort of modernization -- it wasn't tehran or beirut, i won't go overboard, but it was creekly making its way forward. and happened to see it. it was a great place to grow up, you know? it sounds very funny that afghanistan was a great place to be a kid. it really was, at least from the my perspective. and i don't mistake my perspective for that of others, because it was a very poor

country even then. so i think that if i was born a girl in those days, i certainly would have been educated. my mother was a vice principal of a very large high school. there were very outspoken, successful, professional women in my family and extended family, among our friends. so i don't think it would have been a problem. we need to get, we need to get back to those days, and that's one of the key things that needs to be a red line in the future of afghanistan, is the education of women, you know? it's not a secret how you raise yourself out of poverty. you empower women. and this has to be, and i've said this many times in other interviews, this has to be -- cannot be used as a bargaining chip. women's rights and the autonomy of women and the role that they play in the future of afghanistan is absolutely crucial and must absolutely be nonnegotiable. [applause]

>> well, you can see that for all of us, for me personally and for everyone in this glorious place, this has been a very special, special time to hear you, your thoughts about how you create these wonderful works of fiction. and this, i think, is the greatest, the best of all. so for those who have not had the chance, the book is "and the mountains echoed." it is extraordinary. it is compelling, a morality play told over generations set in this place but also in paris, in california and with themes that are universal to all of us. thank you. >> thank you, andrea, it really -- i appreciate it. i didn't want say in this back -- i didn't say this

backstage, but i've learned so much from your program, and i'm a great admirer of yours, and you are terrific at what you do. when they told me you'd be doing this interview, i was really floored. so -- [laughter] it has been a real privilege. thank you. >> well, thank you. [applause] >> booktv is on facebook. like us to interact with booktv guests and viewers, watch videos and get up-to-date information on events. facebook.com/booktv. >> talk about the importance of confidence in being a united states senator, butting a woman and -- but being a woman and how important it is to foster that in future business leaders or even moms? >> absolutely.

i encourage women to be involved and, you know, to step up front, frankly. and, you know, and i always say to graduating classes, you know, i could never have imagined that i would have been, you know, running for the united states senate when i was in your position either. >> yeah. >> but leave open the possibility of doing that, because it is critical to have those examples in our governing institutions and in all places in our society that are important to have women's voices and reflective, you know, of women in our population. and the second part of it is is that they bring a different experience, and that's also important to have that voice at the table. and so i encourage hem to think about it -- them to think about it as a possibility in the future. and, you know, and those choices present themself. and even for me, as much as i was passionate about politics, the thought of running to public office, you know, i was going to come to washington to work, you always have to go against the

grain of whatever you do in life, you know? it's a what it is. and that's what i always did, i ran against the grain. and i felt so strongly about the things that i believed in. and so that voice is important to fight for, and it made changes in policy. there was a direct correlation. you know, i love the fact that, you know, that even today with the women's health initiative that we spawned by the disclosure that the nih was excluding women in clinical study trials, i mean, to this day the large trial ever for women is still revealing results and life-saving discoveries for women. and that's so important for cause and effect to participate in the political process in what evolved from it. i think about title ix, for example. i mean, in fact, i was talking about it the other day with donna brazile, as a matter of fact. and, you know, she was a

beneficiary, she was saying, of title ix. i said, you know, i love the fact that you've got young women who are just so -- >> so fascinating how 4r5eu9 some of these rights and protections came all during your -- i mean, many of them during your four decades of service. you were really there at a formative period that, you know, people, women younger than you may take for granted, but you were a witness to the changes. >> right. >> and it's really worth -- women especially really should read about the fights you had to wage on behalf of women. i loved also an anecdote about your much-revered senator, margaret chase smith of maine, who gave a speech called the deck la asian of con --

declaration of conscience, not naming senator joe mccarthy, in june of 1950. and you quote a financier and political consultant named bernard baruch? >> yes. >> who said if a man had made the declaration of conscience, he would have been the next president of the united states. and you mentioned in the book when you're talking about hillary rodham clinton who is an old friend, you said an extraordinary role model, you have known herrer if years because your husbands served as governors together. did they sit next to each other -- >> yes, they did, in the order in which the states came into the union, that's how they sit. >> oh, right. that's how -- right. and it was so serendipitous. you are old friends and, obviously, colleagues, and you said that the united states is ready for a woman president. so i have to can you, she's obviously the great hope of the democratic party, the great hope of many women whether or not you want her to run, whether or not

you would support her, any feelings that you have? you have said you have enduring respect for her service as secretary of state. she, you know, barring whatever is wrapping her up in any current benghazi, you know, excitement on capitol hill, when you look at the future and you think that this country is ready, would you as a republican sit it out if she ran? >> well -- [laughter] that's too far down the road to speculate about all of that, but i think that, you know, if hillary wanted to run, she should run. i mean, she did set, i think, an extraordinary example of how a woman, you know, can run for public office. and so that's what's important. she, i think, broke down that barrier single-handedly and is highly talented and capable and smart. so if she chooses to do that, i think that, you know, many women will embrace, you know, her candidacy. but i think the country is

prepared to have a woman president, and i think that by virtue of the fact that what she was able to accomplish at that point in time in her own candidacy, i think, has dispelled any notion that a woman could not be prepared. even though she didn't win the primary -- >> right. >> for different reasons, you know, differences within the party, you know, in primary. but by with virtue of her candidacy and how she conducts herself, i think she has basically eradicated any fears about how a woman would handle herself. >> well, i -- there's many delightful anecdotes that i keep mentioning in the book and little nuggets for congress watchers like myself to enjoy, but one of my favorites is that you divulge how frequently and regularly women senators get together, how privately they sort of nurture each other and mentor each other which i thought was so impressive and that you actually dine with female justices, something i'd never known before, which i thought was really quite

wonderful and what an honor. >> oh, it is. >> and i thought that that was, that that's, you know, really another reason to sort of delve in here is to learn not only about the way things used to be -- >> right. >> but how much women look out for each other in positions of power and how it's really bipartisan -- >> right. >> and the way you talk about hillary clinton and, obviously, you know, your friendship that formed years ago before she was in the senate is just a unique connection, i think. it's very interesting. so you have, um, you don't want to guess anybody, you want to tell them that there is a way out. >> there is. >> and that even if it's not near term, there's a path to unity and productive future for the congress, diminish polarization in the future if some steps are taken in the

meantime. and you list them in the book. you have relations for a five-day workweek, an annual budget -- i'm sorry, biannual budgeting, restoring the process of getting to a budget, a bipartisan leadership committee which is so interesting. that means that they have to lead the congress and get out of their own partisan leadership where they're worried about reelecting everybody. no budget, no pay which means if members are derelict in their duties, they're not going to collect a paycheck. a more open amendment process, no more secret holds on legislation and return, i think this is so critical, to regular order in the committees. >> right. >> that you can't throw off an emergency supercommittee sequester bill at the last minute. everything would have to go back. and abolish leadership pacs because you were only one of five senators without a leadership pac. >> thank you. >> so i want to know, semi-open

primaries, i'm a big believer of that myself and commissions instead of state legislatures deciding on redistricting. and i think it's important for americans to read your book especially on the chapter on all of these political -- the fix is kind of in on the system. and so if they don't know about redistricting and they don't know about how few districts actually swing every election cycle and how 79% of us shouldn't even get in the car and vote because it was already decided. so this is really, i think you have all the right ideas, and i want to, if you can share a little bit of what's outlined in your book. how, you have a great anecdote that congressman rick nolan who left the house in 1981 is back, and he's been warned he needs to spend 30 hours a week on fundraising. >> i know. >> where do you get the establishment, the incumbents, the crusty, old system that

might seem new but is now so set in, where do you get them to throw away the leadership pacs, to -- >> you know, they -- if everybody had to stand down on both sides of the aisle. >> right. >> that's the key. and my changes on campaign finance reform it has to be a level playing field on both sides. that's what we had to orchestrate in mccain-feingold because it was my provision that was struck down in the supreme court in citizens united. but it was that even-handedness. so both sides had to do it. i mean, that's one less level of financing, raising money. think about it. in the house of representatives, they had an overwhelming -- i think probably the majority at least have leadership pacs not running for leadership, but it's another avenue to give money to candidates at a much higher level than you can as an individual. but the point being it's not only they're raising money more

their own campaigns, they also have to raise this money for their leadership pacs because it's expected -- >> right. >> -- that you're going to raise so much money. and especially if you're a chair committee -- >> well, if you want to be a power broker, you want to raise money. yes, you are expected to deliver for the party. ..