100 books like Lhasa

I’ve read a bunch of English-language memoirs written by Tibetans living in exile. My Tibetan Childhood is different. Originally written in Tibetan and published by an underground press in China, Naktsang Nulo’s remarkable memoir of growing up in the grasslands of Amdo during the 1950s is meant to preserve for younger generations of Tibetans the traumatic story of their homeland’s incorporation into the Chinese state. 

The first half offers a nostalgic but unflinching portrayal of life before the coming of the Chinese. Unlike much of the exile literature, this is not an idealized Tibet but one filled with violence and injustice as well as community and faith. The second half describes in harrowing detail the events of 1958 when Nakstang’s chiefdom was destroyed, his father shot and killed, and he and his brother were left to survive prison camps and then horrific famine. All told through the eyes of a… show more.

Tsering Döndrup, known for his cuttingly satirical, frequently unflattering, and often hilarious critiques of Tibetan and Chinese society, is one of the most celebrated writers of fiction in contemporary Tibet. And this is certainly his most audacious and courageous novel. 

Based on extensive interviews and archival sources, The Red Wind Howls essentially begins where Naktsang’s memoir ends: the 1958 Amdo Rebellion and its brutal pacification by the Chinese state. Although moving seamlessly between the protagonist’s childhood, the Cultural Revolution, and the beginning of Deng Xiaoping’s Reform era, much of the story takes place in the labor camps where tens of thousands of Amdo Tibetans were sent in the aftermath of the 1958 rebellion.

Yet Dhöndrup tells this story with his characteristic iconoclasm and dark humor that frequently had me laughing in spite of the seriousness of the subject matter.

Get this book first for the extraordinary collection of 300 black-and-white photographs of the Cultural Revolution in Lhasa, which is also one of the largest troves of Cultural Revolution-era photographs from anywhere in China. The remarkable photos, which depict the destruction of temples, the humiliation of lamas and members of the old nobility, and more, were taken by Tsering Dorje, a Tibetan officer in the People’s Liberation Army. 

Then read the accompanying essays and interviews by Tsering Dorje’s daughter, the prominent Tibetan poet, writer, and public intellectual Tsering Woeser, which not only chronicle the events of the Cultural Revolution but meditate on Tibetan participation in the assaults on Tibet’s cultural heritage and, like the two books above, serve as powerful reminders of the ways communal memory continues to hamper state efforts to fully integrate Tibetans and other non-Han communities into the Chinese nation.

In this book, Emily Yeh has managed to do one of the hardest things in academic writing. She has produced an erudite, creative, and deeply researched study of contemporary Tibet that is also eminently readable, even for a general audience.

Yeh demonstrates ways that “development” in Tibet, pitched by the state as avenues to better the material lives of Tibetans—for example, through infrastructure projects and the expansion of markets and education—often serves to increase state control while further disempowering Tibetans.

This helps explain why in 2008—in spite of rising economic indicators—demonstrations broke out across the Tibetan plateau and why, in years since, more than 160 Tibetans have self-immolated in protest against the Chinese state.

This book doesn’t tell the story of one expedition, it recounts many, launched by men of nine different nationalities, all intent on breaking into the closed world of Tibet. I am not alone in considering Hopkirk to be one of the great masters of what might be described as ‘historical travel’ books, and this is surely one of his best. Populated by a wonderful cast of characters, all determined to be the first westerner to reach the sacred, and forbidden, city of Lhasa. I can’t recommend it highly enough – and, enjoy one of Hopkirk’s books, and you’ll enjoy them all.  

For years, the Dalai Lama was courted by Beijing in efforts to incorporate Tibet into the new Chinese Communist State. Drawing on official Chinese documents and memoirs and interviews with Tibetan emigres, Li pulls together a dramatic account of the maneuverings, miscalculations, and events during a critical period that culminated in an uprising in Lhasa that was violently crushed by the People’ Liberation Army, leading to the dramatic flight of the Dalai Lama to India. The account provides fresh new light on a dramatic failure of Chinese policy whose consequences are felt to the present day.

I was enthralled by the emotional and physical strength of Alexandra David-Neel as she journeyed across the extreme wilds of the Tibetan Plateau in 1923 to reach the forbidden city of Lhasa. Her brilliance as a scholar of many Eastern languages and dialects influenced me to study the Nepalese language as part of my own volunteer work. After reading this book I longed to see Lhasa and places like Shigatse and Gyantse myself so in 2009 I travelled to Lhasa before heading to Western Tibet to trek the pilgrimage kora (circumambulation) of sacred Mount Kailash. I silently thanked her when I reached 5,630 metres at Drolma La, the high pass on the three-day circuit.

This book opened a window into another world for me. Heinrich stopped his journey and became part of that extraordinary world as tutor and friend to the Dalai Lama. His writing of his years there created a spell of exotic mystery. That world is no longer in existence, but the city continues to be a magnet for travellers. I tried to get to Lhasa in 1984 but got arrested by Chinese police. Instead of jail, they made me write outlines 200 times that I’d turn over a leaf and not go to Lhasa. So still in search of new worlds, I went off to Yunnan’s mountain top hidden monasteries. And I treasure the memory of Heinrich’s book as an insight into a world that has gone forever.

This book is a wonderful collection of the lives of six Tibetan female mystics, brought together by the American Lama Tsultrim Allione, the emanation of the renowned 11th-century Tibetan yogini, Machig Labdrön, and one of the few women Lamas in the world today. The book includes an extensive autobiographical preface and introduction in which Lama Tultrum Allione shares her own story and experience of the difficulties and triumphs of women in Tibetan Buddhism, and of women pursuing a spiritual life in the West with candid honesty. The stories of these remarkable women's pasts and brought together in this book offer a wealth of insight and encouragement for both women and men who aspire to a spiritual life in the face of adversity.