This is the as-told-to political autobiography of Phuntso Wangye (Phunwang), one of the most important Tibetan revolutionary figures of the twentieth century. Phunwang began his activism in school, where he founded a secret Tibetan Communist Party. He was expelled in 1940, and for the next nine years he worked to organize a guerrilla uprising against the Chinese who controlled his homeland. In 1949, he merged his Tibetan Communist Party with Mao's Chinese Communist Party. He played an important role in the party's administrative organization in Lhasa and was the translator for the young Dalai Lama during his famous 1954-55 meetings with Mao Zedong. In the 1950s, Phunwang was the highest-ranking Tibetan official within the Communist Party in Tibet. Though he was fluent in Chinese, comfortable with Chinese culture, and devoted to socialism and the Communist Party, Phunwang's deep commitment to the welfare of Tibetans made him suspect to powerful Han colleagues. In 1958 he was secretly detained; three years later, he was imprisoned in solitary confinement in Beijing's equivalent of the Bastille for the next eighteen years. Informed by vivid firsthand accounts of the relations between the Dalai Lama, the Nationalist Chinese government, and the People's Republic of China, this absorbing chronicle illuminates one of the world's most tragic and dangerous ethnic conflicts at the same time that it relates the fascinating details of a stormy life spent in the quest for a new Tibet.

About the Author
Melvyn C. Goldstein is John Reynolds Harkness Professor in Anthropology and Codirector of the Center for Research on Tibet at Case Western Reserve University. Dawei Sherap is a Tibetan-born intellectual living and working in China. He has written extensively on Phunwang. William R. Siebenschuh is Chair of the English Department at Case Western Reserve University.

Reviews
"A surprising and necessary book on Phunwang for anyone seeking to understand Tibet." - New York Review of Books "Few books illuminate the lives of secular Tibetans, making this vibrant biography of a Tibetan revolutionary an invaluable addition to modern Tibetan history.... [Phunwang's] awe-inspiring story fills many gaps in the history of the relationship between China and Tibet and introduces to a wider world an extraordinary human being." - Booklist "It is both an astonishing tale of idealism and courage and an appalling catalogue of bad faith and historical blunder...[an] important book." - Financial Times "Presents a significant, if neglected, aspect of Tibetan biographical history." - Shambhala Sun/buddhadharma "Taken from many hours of interviews, the narrative flows well, and the translation is highly readable, with helpful explanatory footnotes." - Library Journal"



Book Information
ISBN 9780520249929
Author Melvyn C. Goldstein
Format Paperback
Page Count 400
Imprint University of California Press
Publisher University of California Press
Weight(grams) 544g
Dimensions(mm) 229mm * 152mm * 25mm