"There is a kind of fortress mentality in the West," said the Afghan-born American novelist, whose new novel has a complex plot spanning from Kabul to Paris, a Greek island to California.
"I think it's important for us to remember the humanity of these people," he said during a visit to Milan after twin shipwreck tragedies off Italy in which over 500 asylum seekers are feared dead.
"Nobody says you have to open your door and the whole world can come and settle in your country. Refugees have not chosen their fate, their fate has been forced upon them," Hosseini said.
The book begins with a disturbing folk take about a devil kidnapping children in Afghan villages.
The first setting is an Afghan village in the 1950s and the conclusion is in California where Hosseini, a trained physician, now lives.
It revolves around the story of two children from a poor family who are forced into a heart-rending separation that will forever mark their lives.
The writer said the book had a "non-linear, un-traditional" plot with lots of characters.
"It's more a personal story having more to do with human struggles," he said, adding that the characters he wanted to create were "morally ambiguous" and "not quite so black and white".
The award-winning novelist is a literary phenomenon whose star shows no sign of fading. His first two books, "The Kite Runner" and "A Thousand Splendid Suns", sold 38 million copies worldwide.
His latest book has already sold three million copies since first coming out in the United States in May and is due to be translated into 40 languages including Malaysian and Icelandic.