Tibet, Tibet: A Personal History of a Lost Land

by PatrickFrench (Author)

• New

  Paperback
  2011

  $15.53

  From the author of India: A Portrait, Patrick French's Tibet, Tibet: A Personal History of a Lost Land has been acclaimed as the book that showed the real Tibet for the first time. Tibet has long fascinated the West, but what really lies beyond our romantic image of a Buddhist mountain kingdom of peace and spirituality? Travelling through the country, French meets warrior monks, nomads and a nun secretly fighting Chinese communist rule, but also young Tibetans with a more pragmatic attitude to their situation. Interweaving these encounters with little-known stories of war and turmoil from Tibet's past, he reveals a more nuanced, fascinating and surprising picture of this complex place than any other book has done. 'Mixes a compelling subject, magnificent prose and deep understanding' The Times 'Inspired and heartfelt ... shows that Tibet was never the peace-loving paradise so many generations of well-wishers have longed for it to be' Pico Iyer, Los Angeles Times 'Tibet, Tibet, so good they named it twice ... French is a writer of generous talents' Sunday Times 'French has produced something very different from what he calls Tibetophile literature, something greatly superior in its honesty and lack of false sentiment' Spectator 'A gripping mix of history, travel writing and personal memoir ... vividly told' Observer Patrick French is the author of Younghusband: The Last Great Imperial Adventurer, which won the Somerset Maugham Award and the Royal Society of Literature W. H. Heinemann Prize, Liberty or Death: India's Journey to Independence and Division, which won the Sunday Times Young Writer of the Year Award, Tibet, Tibet: A Personal History of a Lost Land and, most recently, The World Is What It Is: The Authorized Biography of V.S. Naipaul, which was shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Prize and won the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Hawthornden Prize.

• Used

  Hardcover
  2003

  $5.24

  In 1982, while he was still a schoolboy, Patrick French met the Dalai Lama for the first time. Ever since, he has been fascinated by Tibet's people, its history, and its recent plight. Tibet, Tibet is a combination of travel and history. The book offers an exploration of one of the most beautiful, isolated, mysterious and misunderstood countries on earth. It follows Patrick French's progress on a journey through Tibet, sidetracked on the way by a cascade of information, thoughts and reflections on such subjects as the correct method of travelling across a desert by night; the advisability of not naming your children until their sixth year; and events like the removal of a corrupt Regent's eyeballs by means of a yak's knucklebones in 1933.