Lianne Kolirin, CNN
Acclaimed writer Khaled Hosseini has said he has “never been prouder” of his daughter, after she came out as transgender.
The Afghan-American novelist posted a black and white picture of his daughter on social media Wednesday, with a heartfelt message about her news.
Hosseini, whose work includes bestselling novels “The Kite Runner,” “A Thousand Splendid Suns” and “And the Mountains Echoed,” wrote on Instagram: “Yesterday, my twenty-one year old daughter Haris came out to the world as transgender.
Acknowledging the challenges Haris has faced in coming to terms with her identity, Hosseini continued: “I have known about Haris’ journey since last year and I’ve watched her navigate some very trying personal times. Transitioning is such a complicated undertaking — emotionally, physically, socially, psychologically — but Haris has met each challenge with grace, patience, and wisdom.
“As a father, I have never been prouder of her. I am delighted to now have not one but two beautiful daughters. Most of all, I am inspired by Haris’ fearlessness, her courage to share with the world her true self. She has taught me and our family so much about bravery, about truth. About what it means to live authentically. I know this process was painful for her, fraught with grief and anxiety. She is sober to the cruelty trans people are subjected to daily. But she is strong and undaunted.”
Born in Kabul, Afghanistan in 1965, Hosseini arrived in the US with his family as asylum seekers in 1980. He has been a Goodwill Ambassador for UNHCR, the UN Refugee Agency, since 2006.
His books have been published in more than 70 countries and sold more than 40 million copies worldwide, according to his website.
Hosseini, whose family is based in California, also shared a black and white image of himself with Haris as a toddler.
In an interview with CNN back in 2013, Hosseini said that becoming a parent had a big impact on his writing.
“There is no question that it has transformed and informed my way of writing,” he said.
Explaining why he often writes about children on the cusp of adolescence, he said at the time that he was fascinated by “that age of 12 or so, when the foundations of the world as the child has thus far known it are beginning to crack, and the world is revealing itself to be more nuanced, more complicated, more messy, more troubling (than they imagined).”
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