Hassan’s life and death in the Kite Runner is a complicated one, making it a little difficult to answer this question in a straightforward way. He was born into the low-caste Hazara minority group in Kabul, Afghanistan, where he lived with his parents until the age of 5, when he and his father Ali moved to California to be near the Amir.
Hassan and the Amir returned to Afghanistan for the summers, and the two boys grew very close. They often played kite-fighting games together or went on adventures in Kabul. The novel portrays them as being somewhat similar to Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn: Hassan was often the one who would push the boundaries of their adventures but in a way that would ultimately lead them both back home safely.
In 1975, after years of unrest, Afghanistan experienced a communist coup d’etat led by Hafizullah Amin—one year later, Soviet troops invaded Kabul in response to an uprising that had been spreading across nearby nations. The Amir fled with Hassan and Ali to Paris while Sanaubar stayed behind with her family. In 1980, Hassan was killed during the Soviet assault on Kabul; his body was never recovered and it’s not exactly clear when he died.
