My independent novel was, A Thousand Splendid Suns, by Khaled Hosseini. This story is set in Afghanistan during the three decades of anti-Soviet jihad, civil war and Taliban tyranny. It follows Mariam the illegitimate daughter of a wealthy businessman, forced at age fifteen into marrying an abusive man. Eighteen years later the same man, takes another wife, fourteen year-old Laila. Mariam and Laila become allies as the struggle to survive, and find happiness in a violent home and war-stricken country.
Visit these links to read reviews on, A Thousand Splendid Suns. New York Times, GoodReads, The Guardian
For my independent novel, I had to analyze the setting and prove how it was important to the character. To do this I created a map and pointed out the places of significance. Take a look at my interactive map.
Another assignment I had to work on was my NGO (non government organizations) research project. As I was reading my novel I needed to identify human rights that were violated, then had to look for NGOs that would be beneficial to the characters that were effected by the violations .
To conclude the independent novel unit, the class had to write an essay based on the human right violations in the book and how they effected the characters. I focused my essay on how the violations of the character's rights negatively impacted their well-beings. If you'd like to read it, my essay can be found below.
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