http://vip.book.sina.com.cn/book/chapter_40303_23560.html

谨以此书献给哈里斯和法拉，他们为我启蒙。献给所有阿富汗的孩子。

我成为今天的我，是在1975年某个阴云密布的寒冷冬日，那年我十二岁。我清楚地记得当时自己趴在一堵坍塌的泥墙后面，窥视着那条小巷，旁边是结冰的小溪。许多年过去了，人们说陈年旧事可以被埋葬，然而我终于明白这是错的，因为往事会自行爬上来。回首前尘，我意识到在过去二十六年里，自己始终在窥视着那荒芜的小径。。。

KHALED HOSSEINI 卡勒德·胡赛尼 

（那怪这部小说畅销，开头写得这么好！后面的就比较啰嗦了，“人们偶尔需要故事娱乐一下”，如果是这样不如去看看这部电影，比较节省时间。电影比小说更美化更浪漫，小说更现实更残忍。。。读英文版可以学点英语，又不会浪费时间，还很轻松。。。）

This book is dedicated to Haris and Farah, both the _noor_ of my eyes, and to the children of Afghanistan.

ONE

_December 2001_

I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975. I remember the precise moment, crouching behind a crumbling mud wall, peeking into the alley near the frozen creek. That was a long time ago, but it's wrong what they say about the past, I've learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out. Looking back now, I realize I have been peeking into that deserted alley for the last twenty-six years.

One day last summer, my friend Rahim Khan called from Pakistan. He asked me to come see him. Standing in the kitchen with the receiver to my ear, I knew it wasn't just Rahim Khan on the line. It was my past of unatoned sins. After I hung up, I went for a walk along Spreckels Lake on the northern edge of Golden Gate Park. The early-afternoon sun sparkled on the water where dozens of miniature boats sailed, propelled by a crisp breeze. Then I glanced up and saw a pair of kites, red with long blue tails, soaring in the sky. They danced high above the trees on the west end of the park, over the windmills, floating side by side like a pair of eyes looking down on San Francisco, the city I now call Home. And suddenly Hassan's voice whispered in my head: _For you, a thousand times over_. Hassan the harelipped kite runner.

I sat on a park bench near a willow tree. I thought about something Rahim Khan said just before he hung up, almost as an after thought. _There is a way to be good again_. I looked up at those twin kites. I thought about Hassan. Thought about Baba. Ali. Kabul. I thought of the life I had lived until the winter of 1975 came and changed everything. And made me what I am today.

。。。。。。

作者：协力art