Modern Tibetan Literature and Social Change is the first systematic and detailed overview of modern Tibetan literature, which has burgeoned only in the last thirty years. This comprehensive collection brings together fourteen pioneering scholars in the nascent field of Tibetan literary studies, including authors who are active in the Tibetan literary world itself. These scholars examine the literary output of Tibetan authors writing in Tibetan, Chinese, and English, both in Tibet and in the Tibetan diaspora.

The contributors explore the circumstances that led to the development of modern Tibetan literature, its continuities and breaks with classical Tibetan literary forms, and the ways that writers use forms such as magical realism, satire, and humor to negotiate literary freedom within the People's Republic of China. They provide crucial information about Tibetan writers' lives in China and abroad, the social and political contexts in which they write, and the literary merits of their oeuvre. Along with deep social, cultural, and political analysis, this wealth of information clarifies the complex circumstances that Tibetan writers face in the PRC and the diaspora. The contributors consider not only poetry, short stories, and novels but also other forms of cultural production-such as literary magazines, films, and Web sites-that provide a public forum in the Tibetan areas of the PRC, where censorship and restrictions on public gatherings remain the norm. Modern Tibetan Literature and Social Change includes a previously unavailable list of modern Tibetan works translated into Western languages and a comprehensive English-language index of names, subjects, and terms.

Contributors: Pema Bhum, Howard Y. F. Choy, Yangdon Dhondup, Lauran R. Hartley, Hortsang Jigme, Matthew T. Kapstein, Nancy G. Lin, Lara Maconi, Francoise Robin, Patricia Schiaffini-Vedani, Ronald D. Schwartz, Tsering Shakya, Sangye Gyatso (aka Gangzhun), Steven J. Venturino,
Riika Virtanen

A critical introduction to modern Tibetan literature

About the Author

Lauran R. Hartley is Tibetan Studies Librarian at the C. V. Starr East Asian Library at Columbia University. The translator of Six Stars with a Crooked Neck: Tibetan Memoirs of the Cultural Revolution, Hartley has a doctorate in Tibetan studies. Patricia Schiaffini-Vedani is part-time Assistant Professor of Chinese at Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas. She is President and Founder of the Tibetan Arts and Literature Initiative, a nonprofit organization dedicated to supporting Tibetan publishing initiatives. Schiaffini-Vedani has a doctorate in Chinese language and literature, specializing in Sinophone Tibetan literature.

Reviews
"Despite the growing interest in contemporary Tibet, there have been few
publications in western languages of writings by contemporary Tibetans,
besides those written in Chinese by authors such as Tashi Dawa and Alai
who know little if any written Tibetan and have complex, difficult relations
with their Tibetan heritage. Hartley and Schiaffini-Vedani's collection of
critical studies of modern Tibetan literature makes a major contribution to
correcting this imbalance. . . . [H]ere we have rich context and analysis of Tibetan voices and not just those favoured by publishers in Beijing or New York." - Robert Barnett, Pacific Affairs
"[T]his volume will be remembered as the book that legitimized Tibetan literature." - Nathan W. Hill, China Review International
"I selected to read Modern Tibetan Literature and Social Change with the desire for a deeper understanding of Tibetan culture, and I certainly received it. This collection is very approachable for such a scholarly work. Some of the language describing the writing of poetry was beautiful - true for any writer, in any language. I appreciated the introduction to writers who I probably would not have encountered on my own, and most of all, I gained a deeper understanding of what happens when a country is taken over, or shall I say 'liberated', by another. . . . This book is a rich resource, as the first comprehensive collection of its kind, for any scholarly inquiry into Tibetan literature." - Jennifer M. Wilson, Feminist Review blog
"Modern Tibetan Literature and Social Change is a pioneering and engaging collection of articles by prominent Tibetan, French and American academics tracing the evolution of Tibetan literature over the past fifty years. Lean and perceptive articles cover a wide range of literary output...With the representations of 'Tibetanness' so hotly debated in China and the West, this collection gives a fascinating insight into the parallel debate raging within Tibetan literature itself." - George Fitzherbert, Times Literary Supplement
"The work's 14 chapters provide much-needed thematic reflections by Tibetan and non-Tibetan scholars into the subject matter and aesthetics of current Tibetan writing. . . . This important book is scholarly by amazingly readable; thus, it will find a multidisciplinary audience, including enthusiasts of Tibetan culture in general. An exceptional, invaluable acquisition. Essential. All readers, all levels." - T. Carolan, CHOICE
"This project fills a long necessary gap not only in the study of Tibetan language and literature, but also in modern Tibetan cultural studies. It succeeds admirably in a task that is not attempted nearly often enough: of bringing Tibetan-related topics into meaningful dialogue with other areas and disciplines." - Amy Holmes-Tagchungdarpa, IIAS Newsletter
"Modern Tibetan Literature and Social Change will instantly become the standard reference for future writing on Tibetan literature. The significance of that literature for Sino-Tibetan relations and for the fate of the Tibetan cultural world is only now being recognized. The list of contributors to this collection is a veritable 'who's who' in the study of Tibetan literature."-Janet Gyatso, author of Apparitions of the Self: The Secret Autobiographies of a Tibetan Visionary
"This book is a milestone. It is the first to bring together the complex variety of ingredients that have nurtured modern Tibetan literature. It considers several literary genres, written in three languages (Tibetan, Chinese, and English), and gives sensitive attention both to Tibetan literary tradition and to the turmoil of modern politics and social change."-Perry Link, author of The Uses of Literature: Life in the Socialist Chinese Literary System
"Modern Tibetan Literature and Social Change is a pioneering and engaging collection of articles by prominent Tibetan, French and American academics tracing the evolution of Tibetan literature over the past fifty years. Lean and perceptive articles cover a wide range of literary output...With the representations of 'Tibetanness' so hotly debated in China and the West, this collection gives a fascinating insight into the parallel debate raging within Tibetan literature itself." -- George Fitzherbert * TLS *
"[T]his volume will be remembered as the book that legitimized Tibetan literature." -- Nathan W. Hill * China Review International *
"Despite the growing interest in contemporary Tibet, there have been few publications in western languages of writings by contemporary Tibetans, besides those written in Chinese by authors such as Tashi Dawa and Alai who know little if any written Tibetan and have complex, difficult relations with their Tibetan heritage. Hartley and Schiaffini-Vedani's collection of critical studies of modern Tibetan literature makes a major contribution to correcting this imbalance. . . . [H]ere we have rich context and analysis of Tibetan voices and not just those favoured by publishers in Beijing or New York." -- Robert Barnett * Pacific Affairs *
"I selected to read Modern Tibetan Literature and Social Change with the desire for a deeper understanding of Tibetan culture, and I certainly received it. This collection is very approachable for such a scholarly work. Some of the language describing the writing of poetry was beautiful - true for any writer, in any language. I appreciated the introduction to writers who I probably would not have encountered on my own, and most of all, I gained a deeper understanding of what happens when a country is taken over, or shall I say 'liberated', by another. . . . This book is a rich resource, as the first comprehensive collection of its kind, for any scholarly inquiry into Tibetan literature." -- Jennifer M. Wilson * Feminist Review blog *
"This project fills a long necessary gap not only in the study of Tibetan language and literature, but also in modern Tibetan cultural studies. It succeeds admirably in a task that is not attempted nearly often enough: of bringing Tibetan-related topics into meaningful dialogue with other areas and disciplines." -- Amy Holmes-Tagchungdarpa * IIAS Newsletter *



Book Information
ISBN 9780822342779
Author Lauran R. Hartley
Format Paperback
Page Count 424
Imprint Duke University Press
Publisher Duke University Press
Weight(grams) 717g