Where Tibetans Write

Latest articles

• Call for contribution

  22 June, by TW
  The Foundation for Universal Responsibility of His Holiness The Dalai Lama invites contributions for a book TIBET: VOICES IN EXILE to be published by a major international publisher We are looking for personal narratives and perspectives from Tibetans in exile in India and overseas. These could cover any concern, issue, reflection, memory or dreams exploring experiences, or predicaments that are personal, social or political. Authors can explore the past, the present or the future – both (...)

• 81-year-old Tibetan to Receive Jeri Laber International Freedom to Publish Award

  17 April, by TW
  Paljor Norbu, an eighty-one-year-old Tibetan printer and publisher from Lhasa, has been selected as the 2009 recipient of the Jeri Laber International Freedom to Publish Award, the International Freedom to Publish Committee (IFTPC) announced Thursday. Paljor Norbu was arrested by Chinese police from his home in Tibet’s capital Lhasa on 31 October last year, for allegedly printing “prohibited material,” including the banned Tibetan flag. He was tried in secret in November and sentenced to (...)

• The Bounty March

  31 March, by Tenzin Tsundue
  The Tibetan activist outlines his people’s crucial history of hope in the half century since the March Uprising As a schoolboy in Class VII, my first serious Tibetan history lesson was one of provocation. I used to listen to Professor Samdhong Rinpoche’s Tibetan history lectures on audio tapes sent by a scholar uncle in Varanasi. In one anecdote, Professor Rinpoche tells of the 1950 fall of the eastern gate of Kham-Chamdo to invading Chinese troops. A messenger in Lhasa ran to deliver the (...)

• Tibet and China: the past in the present

  28 March, by Tsering Shakya
  The Chinese government proclaimed in January 2009 that for the first time a festival called "Serf Liberation Day" is to be celebrated in Tibet, in commemoration of the events of 1959 when Chinese forces occupied Lhasa and established direct control over the country following the uprising of Tibetans against their encroaching rule. The decision - a response to the widespread protests that engulfed the Tibetan plateau in March-April 2008 - was carefully crafted and presented as if it (...)

• Who are the real separatists?

  26 March, by Kunga Tsayang
  Kunga Tsayang (pen name: Gangnyi) is a respected writer, intellectual and artist of the new Tibetan generation. He was arrested by the Chinese authorities on 17 March 2009, from Labrang Monastery on alleged charges for writing political essays on Tibet to a website named as "Jottings" (Tib: Zin-dris), in Gansu Province. Information dissemination is the most important tool in carrying out any kind of action or campaign. However, if one’s ways of spreading information crosses the standard (...)

• Dreams of the educated-dispossessed

  12 March, by TW
  Indian authors writing in English have been on a winning streak over the past decade, publishing novels to wide international acclaim. Over the past five years alone, two Man Booker Prizes have gone to writers of Indian origin. But what exactly is meant by the term ‘Indian novel’? V S Naipaul, perhaps the pre-eminent writer of Indian origin, was not born in India, and has lived most of his life in England. Pico Iyer, too: born in England, lives in Japan. These designations can certainly get (...)

• What kinds of songs are “reactionary songs”?

  29 January, by Woeser
  High Peaks Pure Earth is posting a translation of a post from Woeser’s blog that was posted on 13th January 2009 titled “What kinds of songs are ’reactionary songs’?”. It is through sheer coincidence that whilst reading Woeser’s post and thinking about what she wrote, High Peaks Pure Earth received news that the well-known Amdo singer Tenzin, who owns a music shop in Lhasa had been detained by the police and accused of downloading "illegal music”. We are not sure of the exact date of his (...)

• The Tibetan Resolution

  2 January, by Tenzin Tsundue
  Freedom First The Tibetans recently took a major decision in their 60-year freedom struggle by re-adopting Independence as the alternate goal of the freedom struggle. The decision taken at the "Special Meeting" called by the Dalai Lama himself in Dharamsala the capital of the exiled Tibetans situated in the North Indian state of Himachal Pradesh was a historic one though its nuanced importance is little understood outside. I was one among the minority participants both by being a youth (...)

• A Song from a Distance

  24 November 2008, by Bhuchung D Sonam
  My body is trapped in a heated room. Light shines from the ceiling. A leather sofa invites me To let my spine relax, But my heart runs To that river by the village That bridge made of leather thongs Rocking with the wind, That dusty yard where I was tied to a boulder while mama Worked in the field everyday. Here grey houses stare at me. The people on the train, Frozen, edgy, tired, lonely, lost, Wish for other versions of their lives. My mind runs to That village by The (...)

• Amdo Sershul

  20 November 2008, by Tenzin Dickyi
  Amdo Sershul hoards his war stories, deals them out sparingly to passers by in their times of need. Empty your bowels, fill up with stories! It’s not exactly cheap. No. 2 rupees for a piss, 5 for a shit, not what you would call cheap. But the stories have travelled far and they come from a master storyteller. He doesn’t talk about the actual battles, about rifles and rounds and exit wounds - No, he talks about before and after and I can’t be sure how much that’s worth. "…my friend (...)

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