Sparks Like Stars: A Novel

“Until now, my history has remained buried in me the way ancient civilizations are hidden beneath layers of earth and new life.”

The opening line of the novel announces the theme of coming to terms with one’s history. It alludes to the ancient civilization of Afghanistan that will play a role in the story in the form of the ring Aryana keeps. The juxtaposition of earth and new life signals the combined themes of grief and destruction balanced with hope for eventual renewal.

“I couldn’t take my eyes off the image of [my father and the president] with their backs to that woven buzkashi scene. The two men who loomed tall as mountains in my world were suddenly dwarfed by rearing stallions and their whip-clutching riders, a stampede ready to storm this very room.”

This image serves as foreshadowing of the coming revolution. Buzkashi, the national sport of Afghanistan, is a game in which mounted riders compete to transfer a goat carcass to a goal. The intensity of the riders anticipates the imminent violence, while the artifact points to aspects of Afghan culture that will be destroyed by war. The game can also be read as a metaphor for the way the world superpowers of the US and USSR competed to control Afghanistan as an ally and satellite.

“I looked for small signs that we were not facing the end of the world, holding on tight to my freshly spun theory that if the sun and moon kept their rituals, my world would remain intact.”

Hashimi conveys the emotional impact of traumatizing events by showing the magical thinking that young Sitara employs, both at this moment, when the attack on the palace is begun, and later, after her family is killed. The motif of heavenly bodies, particularly stars, offers a potent symbol suggesting there could be a pattern or logic to seemingly senseless or painful events, just as lines between stars can form the stories of constellations.