MATTHEW Spangler knows of only one other stage adaptation of Khaled Hosseini’s novel of betrayal and personal salvation, The Kite Runner.

“There’s a one-man show, based out of New York; he’s done it mostly for school groups and it focuses on only the first third of the novel,” says Matthew. “Mine adapts the whole book.”

Matthew is a writer and professor of playwriting and the theatre of immigration at the San José State University in California.

“I teach about adapting novels, poetry, for the stage, and when I write mine, I like to write my first draft very quickly and then spend time working on it. So the first draft for The Kite Runner was in 2006 and I’ve been revising it ever since. I like it being a living, breathing piece that I can keep working on.”

The latest version can be seen at York Theatre Royal from Monday to Saturday in the touring European premiere by the Nottingham Playhouse Theatre Company and Liverpool Everyman and Playhouse, directed by Giles Croft and first staged in Britain last year.

“It’s the most recent version I’ve done, but not the definitive one,” says Matthew. His play was first produced by the San Jose Repertory in 2009 with a script completed before the release of Marc Forster’s American film.

“I spent two weeks in rehearsal with Giles’s cast, making a number of changes, and I’ve made more changes for this production than for any other, having done away with one of the characters from the North American production. I think we know more about Afghanistan in 2014 and have a different attitude now, so I’ve made some changes to the Afghan scenes.”

Published in 70 countries, Hosseini’s novel tells the story of Amir, a young boy from the Wazir Akbar Khan district of Kabul, whose closest friend is Hassan, his father’s young Hazara servant. Two motherless boys learn to crawl, walk and kite-fight side by side, but neither can foresee a terrible incident that will rip their lives apart.

The tale is set against tumultuous events, from the fall of Afghanistan’s monarchy through the Soviet invasion, the exodus of refugees to Pakistan and the United States, and the rise of the Taliban regime. Above all, it charts a friendship that spans cultures and continents and follows one man’s journey to confront his past and find redemption.

Nottingham Playhouse artistic director Giles Croft is delighted to be following up the play’s success in Nottingham and Liverpool with a tour. “The power and relevance of The Kite Runner doesn’t diminish and I have no doubt that this will prove to be a timeless story,” he says.

“I found reading The Kite Runner an immensely powerful experience, and so I was delighted to discover Matthew Spangler’s honest, imaginative and theatrical adaptation of such an enduring tale of hope and redemption.

“Among its many striking resonances, The Kite Runner tells of the immigrant experience, something that is central to the development of our own culture and is lived by many day to day in British cities.

“But it has another profound connection to Britain; as we move towards a complete troop withdrawal from Afghanistan, it is good, and important, to be reminded of the Afghans’ own stories and histories.

“We have inevitably become bound up in the tragedies and politics of this most recent Afghan war and the experiences of Western troops. It’s easy to forget that the Afghans are a people with a complex and rich culture, with their own story to tell, and that story won’t stop, or cease to be relevant, when our troops come home.”

Both Spangler and Hosseini live in the San Francisco Bay Area, where there is a large Afghan community. A mutual friend introduced them and they met at a coffee shop in spring 2006, where Matthew presented his ideas for the play.

“Khaled is extremely generous, the most kind-hearted collaborator you could wish for,” says Matthew.

“He moved here after the Russians moved into Afghanistan, in order to study medicine, and he wrote the book at night, never intending that it would become what it did, but its success has led him to give up medicine.”

Medicine’s loss is now both literature and theatre’s gain.

• The Kite Runner runs at York Theatre Royal, Monday to Saturday, 7.30pm and 2pm, Thursday and 2.30pm, Saturday. Box office: 01904 623568 or at yorktheatreroyal.co.uk