Born in Kabul, Afghanistan,
Hosseini is the son of an Afghan Foreign Ministry Official and a high school teacher.
Hosseini graduated from Independence High School in San Jose in 1984 and afterwards
got his bachelor's in biology from Santa Clara University in 1988. He later got his
M.D. from UCSD and finished his residency in internal medicine from Cedars-Sinai Medical
Center. In 2003, he wrote his best-selling novel, the Kite Runner.
Hosseini's influence for The Kite Runner included the many Persian novels he had read as a child as well as his almost idealistic memories of Afghanistan and personal experiences with Hazaras. In fact, the basis for the relationship between Amir and Hassan came from Hosseini's own relationship with a Hazara who worked for the Hosseini family in Iran, Hossein Khan.