Penguin Group and Author Hosseini Build School in Afghanistan

by Craig Morgan Teicher -- Publishers Weekly, 11/19/2008 12:38:00 PM

Penguin Group (USA)—in partnership with the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) and author Khaled Hosseini—announced today the opening of a newly built school for children in grades one through six in Arababshirali, which is about 150 miles from Kabul in Afghanistan. The school serves 270 local children.

The project was inspired by Hosseini, bestselling author of The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, who, in 2006 was named a U.S. envoy to the UNHCR. Penguin made a donation as “a tribute to American booksellers, librarians and educators who supported Khaled Hosseini’s #1 New York Times–bestselling and internationally acclaimed novels, The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns.”

“I have been humbled by the outpouring of empathy and compassion from my readers for the people of my homeland,” said Hosseini. “It is a great honor to me when readers write me to say that they have found a personal connection to Afghanistan and the suffering of its people through my novels. To me, this school is the physical expression of that connection.”

Penguin honored more than 350 U.S. booksellers, libraries and teachers for their support of Hosseini’s fiction. They were given personalized certificates that read “Some novels make a world of difference,” signed by the author.