Seller
Your price
£72.79
RRP: £97.00
Save £24.21 (25%)
Dispatched within 2-3 working days.
Trade or Institutional customer? Contact us about large order quotes.
Synopsis
In My Tibetan Chldhood, Naktsang Nulo recalls his life in Tibet's Amdo region during the 1950s. From the perspective of himself at age ten, he describes his upbringing as a nomad on Tibet's eastern plateau. He depicts pilgrimages to monasteries, including a 1500-mile horseback expedition his family made to and from Lhasa. A year or so later, they attempted that same journey as they fled from advancing Chinese troops. Naktsang's father joined and was killed in the little-known 1958 Amdo rebellion against the Chinese People's Liberation Army, the armed branch of the Chinese Communist Party. During the next year, the author and his brother were imprisoned in a camp where, after the onset of famine, very few children survived.
The real significance of this episodic narrative is the way it shows, through the eyes of a child, the suppressed histories of China's invasion of Tibet. The author's matter-of-fact accounts cast the atrocities that he relays in stark relief. Remarkably, Naktsang lived to tell his tale. His book was published in 2007 in China, where it was a bestseller before the Chinese government banned it in 2010. It is the most reprinted modern Tibetan literary work. This translation makes a fascinating if painful period of modern Tibetan history accessible in English. New & Used
| Seller | Information | Condition | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | - | New | £72.79 + FREE UK P & P |
What Reviewers Are Saying
"Some books lure us into new lives and unexpected worlds. Here, the person is the author himself, Naktsang Nulo. . . . There is no other such an apolitical book, known to me, by a Tibetan living and working in Tibet. . . .Neither the Chinese nor the Tibetan diaspora will be able to claim that Naktsang's memoir accords with their conflicting views of the nature of Tibet and its people - although official Chinese will dislike it more because it makes plain the cruelty of their soldiers during the later Fifties." -- Jonathan Mirsky * High Peaks Pure Earth * "This unconventional memoir is a literary as well as historical treasure." -- Andrew J. Nathan * Foreign Affairs * "In this contested territory a voice such as that of Naktsang Nulo, author of My Tibetan Childhood, is extremely rare. . . . Naktsang's is a shattering story, the only published account of the experience of ordinary families during the Chinese assertion of control in Amdo, or of the nomads' doomed resistance against an overwhelming force of PLA regulars." -- Isabel Hilton * London Review of Books * "I can't tell you how refreshing this book is. Religious life writing certainly has its own beauty, but it is really nice to read an autobiography that depicts the actions and concerns of people who are not elite religious practitioners. ... So who should read this book? I'd say pretty much everyone interested in Tibet. It is obviously valuable for those interested in the history of twentieth century Sino-Tibetan conflict, but also gives important insight into pre-communist nomadic life." -- Geoff Barstow * Lost Yak * "The book carries the reader along on a huge tidal wave of emotion. The beauty of the landscape, the compassion and love between individuals, and the cruelty and violence of daily life, combined with the high adventure of travel and escape, make this at times a real page-turner as well as a significant breakthrough in our understanding of the history of Amdo." -- Wendy Palace * Asian Affairs * "With the publication of My Tibetan Childhood, this little known history is now available to a far wider audience. Anyone interested in modern Tibetan or Chinese history-scholars, students, and the general public alike-should be grateful." -- Benno Ryan Weiner * Pacific Affairs * "This is an extraordinary book for the history it tells, made even more so by the fact that it was published originally in China. Naktsang Nulo . . . traces the first dozen years of his life, full of both joy and horror, in a riveting, matter-of-fact style without recriminations or judgments, making this autobiography all the more powerful."
-- A. Tom Grunfeld * The China Journal *
-- A. Tom Grunfeld * The China Journal *