The People — Hazara and Pashtun
The people of Afghanistan come from several ethnic groups. The Kite Runner focuses on two specific ethnic groups, the Hazars and the Pashtuns. The Hazars are a minority group and therefore have faced serious persecution from the majority group, the Pashtuns. The Hazara have an almost Asian look because they are descendants of the Mongolians and they share cultural similarities with the Turkic people of Central Asia. Hassan was a Hazara.
The Pashtuns are Afghanistan's largest and most dominant ethnic group. Because they dominate, they are richer than the Hazaras. Amir and his father were Pashtuns. The Taliban, an extreme fundamentalist Islamic political movement, originated among the Pashtuns. The unspeakable violence of the Taliban is woven into Khaled Hosseini's novel.
