Modern Tibetan Literature And Social Change

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, Françoise Robin, Patricia Schiaffini-Vedani, Ronald D. Schwartz, Tsering Shakya, Sangye Gyatso (aka Gangzhün), Steven J. Venturino, Riika Virtanen

The first systematic and detailed overview of modern Tibetan literature.

This book, the first scholarly publication in the West to provide detailed documentation of modern life in contemporary Tibet, presents the cutting-edge field work carried out by an interdisciplinary group of researchers studying caste, pop music, media, painting, education, economics, childbirth and environment in Tibetan communities today.

This book reveals that the roots of modern Tibetan literature grow in the rich and fertile soil of Tibet’s oral and literary traditions, rather than in the 1980s as current scholarship presents.

The papers in Tibetan Literary Genres, Texts, and Text Types investigate specific Tibetan genres and texts as well as genre classification, transformation, and reception. The text types examined range from oral trickster narratives to songs, offering-rituals, biographies, and modern literature.

This publication critically evaluates the political and ideological impacts of Chinese influences on the development of modern Tibetan writing. By examining three significant themes in separate chapters and focussing on selected writings of Dhondup Gyal and Yidam Tsering, this work explores the defining features of the new Tibetan literature. The author's analysis answers questions about the implications of modernity on this era's poetry and short stories; the historical significance of the emergence of Dhondup Gyal and Yidam Tsering; the relevance of the Cultural Revolution to modern Tibetan poetry and short stories; the reason why poetry became a dominant literary form in modern Tibetan literature; and the role of language used by the two authors in their writings. This work is an invaluable reference for scholars interested in modern Tibetan literary studies.

This book, the first scholarly publication in the West to provide detailed documentation of modern life in contemporary Tibet, presents the cutting-edge field work carried out by an interdisciplinary group of researchers studying caste, pop music, media, painting, education, economics, childbirth and environment in Tibetan communities today.