Khaled Hosseini’s most precious possession
![Photo by 2013.](https://webarchive.archive.unhcr.org/20161003212810im_/http://stories.unhcr.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/khaled-266x400.jpg)
Photo by 2013.
Acclaimed Afghan-American author Khaled Hosseini knows what it’s like to be a refugee.
He was a teenager living in Paris, where his father worked as an Afghan diplomat, when the Soviet Union invaded his homeland on Christmas Eve 1979. His family sought asylum in the United States of America and as Hosseini grew up in California, going on to study to become a doctor, war continued to ravage his homeland.
“Through my own experience and that of my parents I have always understood something of the sense of loss that is central to the refugee experience, the loss of identity, community, dignity, and about lives disrupted, turned upside down.”
“This watch was given to me by my father when I was 13, and it’s my most prized possession, because it represents the oldest surviving relic of my childhood.”