I recently finished reading "The Kite Runner" by Kholed Hosseini. A novel set in Afghanistan, it starts out promising, but ends up somewhat predictable and with little depth. The story is a tragic one, perfect material for a film with its clear storyline of violence, love, friendship, history and mistaken identities. A book that brought Pakistan back to my dreams, I wouldn´t think twice about recommending it, but at the same time it failed to satisfy me in the literary sense.

One thing that disturbed me about the novel, was the use of Dari quotes in the novel. For quite some time now, I have questioned the use of a language other than that of the original work of fiction. To me it seems superfluous and pretentious to drop in the "other" language and then immediately proceed to translate it. Above all, the fact that the "other" language is always written in italics infuriates me. The English language is very rarely seen written in italics.

Why the italics? Why is English never the "other"?

Why am I writing this in English?

Why English?