While in medical practice, Hosseini 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 48 countries.
Khaled Hosseini will be interviewed by physician, writer and TEDGlobal Fellow Nassim Assefi.
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 at a large 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 the invasion of the Soviet army.
The Hosseinis sought and were granted political asylum in the United States. In September of 1980, Hosseini’s family moved to San Jose, California. Hosseini graduated from high school in 1984 and enrolled at Santa Clara University, where he earned a bachelor’s degree in Biology in 1988. The following year, he entered the University of California-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. Hosseini was a practicing internist between 1996 and 2004.
In 2006 he was named a Goodwill Envoy to the United Nations HIgh Commission on Refugees (UNHCR). His second novel, A Thousand Splendid Suns was published in May of 2007. Currently, A Thousand Splendid Suns is published in 40 countries.
Khaled has been working to provide humanitarian assistance in 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. He lives in northern California.
Interviewer Nassim Assefi, a second generation Iranian-American, is an internist specializing in women’s health and global medicine. For the last decade, she has been an academic in Seattle, a humanitarian aid worker and underground salsa dance teacher in Kabul, an aspiring musician in Havana, and a novelist in Istanbul. In 2009, she was selected as a TEDGlobal Fellow, and curated TEDxRainier in Seattle on 10-10-10. She has traveled to more than 50 countries, and is based in Seattle when she is not abroad. She is a graduate of Wellesley College, University of Washington Medical School, and Harvard’s Brigham and Women’s residency program. She is the author of numerous scientific publications; Aria is her first novel. She is currently writing a second novel set in post-conflict Afghanistan entitled Say I Am You.
