A Change in the Wind

The Kite Runner" has been published in dozens of countries—and bootlegged in several more. But the trickiest translation arrives this month, and at a movie theater near you. Hollywood adaptations are often disappointing, so it's a relief to report that this one is refreshingly faithful to its source. Still, "The Kite Runner" has weathered some turbulence. The release was delayed several weeks because the studio feared the Afghan child actors would be in danger due to fallout from a pivotal and grueling rape scene. (They have since been moved to the United Arab Emirates.)

Author Khaled Hosseini, director Marc Forster and actor Khalid Abdalla spoke with NEWSWEEK's Lorraine Ali about their hopes for the film, their love of the book and their fear of Hollywood.

Ali: This is truly a global film—the director is Swiss-American, the novelist Afghan-American and the lead actor Egyptian-British. And it was shot in China.
Hosseini: Yes, all the scripts were in Chinese, Farsi and English.

Abdalla: The first day we were shooting this busy market scene, and that was crazy enough: donkeys, cars, pedestrians. But then there was this relay race of communication from one language to another. It was chaos.

The majority of the dialogue in "The Kite Runner" is in Dari, with English subtitles. For a mainstream film, that seems like a huge risk.
Forster: When we first put it out there, I think the studio imagined it all done in English. When I came onboard, I just couldn't see two boys flying kites in Kabul while speaking English. I thought it wouldn't feel right.

Were any of the Kabul scenes shot in Afghanistan?
Forster: Nothing. You just don't have the infrastructure and the crew there. China has all that. Also, in Kabul, a lot of the architecture had been destroyed there after 30 years of war.

Was there ever an idea that a big name like Tom Cruise should play the lead character, Amir?
Hosseini: I actually had discussions where those kind of names were thrown around.

Forster: Really?
Hosseini: Yes, I remember wincing, thinking, "I can't see actors who are featured on 'Entertainment Tonight' in Kabul." I remember early on talking to Marc, and I floated the idea by him that the studio was considering this big actor for the film. When I heard this kind of disapproving groan come out of him, it made me happy.

How did you find the Afghan kids who play the lead roles?
Forster: The casting director I did "Finding Neverland" with basically looked all over the world where Afghan refugees had settled—Holland, Germany, Virginia, England. We couldn't find anybody that really represented them, especially since Hassan is Hazara [the Hazara are Shia Muslims, an ethnic minority who are often discriminated against in Afghanistan] and they didn't have the means to leave the country. At the time, Kabul seemed safe and I thought we needed to go there to understand the culture better, so we went, saw thousands of kids, then focused on two schools. Out of those kids we found Amir, Hassan and Sohrab. Most people we met were familiar with the book. It's been published in Farsi. Khaled, is that official?

Hosseini: No, pure piracy. My overseas agent calls just to say, "Your book's doing amazingly well in Iran. It's in it's fifth printing. I'll send you a copy." And it's all bootleg. I was in Kabul; "The Kite Runner" in Farsi is a best seller.