Sparks Like Stars: A Gripping Novel of Tragedy, Survival, and Seeking the Truth in Afghanistan and America
âSuspensefulâŚemotionally compelling. I found myself
eagerly following in a way I hadnât remembered for a long time, impatient for
the next twist and turn of the story."âNPR
An Afghan American woman returns to Kabul to learn the truth about her family and the tragedy that destroyed their lives in this brilliant and compelling novel from the bestselling author of The Pearl That Broke Its Shell, The House Without Windows, and When the Moon Is Low.
Kabul, 1978: The daughter of a prominent family, Sitara Zamani lives a privileged life in Afghanistanâs thriving cosmopolitan capital. The 1970s are a time of remarkable promise under the leadership of people like Sardar Daoud, Afghanistanâs progressive president, and Sitaraâs beloved father, his right-hand man. But the ten-year-old Sitaraâs world is shattered when communists stage a coup, assassinating the president and Sitaraâs entire family. Only she survives.
Smuggled out of the palace by a guard named Shair, Sitara finds her way to the home of a female American diplomat, who adopts her and raises her in America. In her new country, Sitara takes on a new nameâAryana Shepherdâand throws herself into her studies, eventually becoming a renowned surgeon. A survivor, Aryana has refused to look back, choosing instead to bury the trauma and devastating loss she endured.
New York, 2008: Thirty years after that fatal night in Kabul, Aryanaâs world is rocked again when an elderly patient appears in her examination roomâa man she never expected to see again. It is Shair, the soldier who saved her, yet may have murdered her entire family. Seeing him awakens Aryanaâs fury and desire for answersâand, perhaps, revenge. Realizing that she cannot go on without finding the truth, Aryana embarks on a quest that takes her back to Kabulâa battleground between the corrupt government and the fundamentalist Talibanâand through shadowy memories of the world she loved and lost.
Bold, illuminating, heartbreaking, yet hopeful, Sparks Like Stars is a story of homeâof America and Afghanistan, tragedy and survival, reinvention and remembrance, told in Nadia Hashimiâs singular voice.
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Community Reviews
The second half of the book is 30 years later, and Sitara is living in New York, working as an oncologist and using a different name. She has put up many barriers and still struggles with her feelings of the soldier who smuggled her out. Why did he do it? When this man suddenly reappears in her life as a patient, she may finally get her answers. But Shair is dying, and the answers may be buried with her family in Kabul. Sitara seeks the truth and embarks on a journey, with the help of others, that takes her back to Afghanistan, where the country is now a battleground between the corrupt government and the Taliban.
This is a sad story, yet hopeful too. I enjoyed reading about the coup (I knew very little). This is a well written historical fiction novel.
This book moved me on so many levels and will stay with me for years to come.
This book shows us Afghanistan at a time of peace, beauty, and prosperity. Prior to the coup that took the life of its first president and eighteen members of his family. Then beyond the Soviet invasion and the turmoil thereafter.
I had just graduated high school in the spring of 2001, and so 9/11 and its aftermath is all I have ever really known of Afghanistan.
Through this book I have come to see Afghanistan and its people in a different light, and a place I would have never imagined wanting to visit before I now find myself heartbroken at the thought of most likely never being able to due to the ongoing instability of the region both within and without its borders.
The young girl and her family that we follow are fictional but the people surrounding them in this story and the events that take place were very much based on real people and events.
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