Culture | Stories of survival

The tragic timeliness of “A Thousand Splendid Suns”

An opera adaptation of Khaled Hosseini’s novel arrives almost two years after the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan

Image: Sunny Martini/Seattle Opera

A FEW YEARS ago the Seattle Opera approached Roya Sadat to direct a new production. This was slightly unusual: the Afghan film-maker had never seen an opera. Then again, she had not been to the cinema before she made her first film. She was brought up in Herat, her country’s third-biggest city, under Taliban rule and all entertainment venues were closed.

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