New Book Looks Unflinchingly at 1959-79 Tibet

By RADIO FREE ASIA
February 25, 2008

When Chinese troops suppressed a nationalist uprising in Tibet's capital city Lhasa in 1959, a curtain came down over Tibet. Thousands were killed in fighting across the country or vanished into labor camps and jails--where many died from illness, overwork, or starvation.

Now, a Tibetan survivor of those events has released an account of them in English translation.

Tubten Khetsun's Memories of Life in Lhasa Under Chinese Rule, published in 2008 by Columbia University Press, details the author's experiences in Chinese prisons and as a forced laborer on state-run construction sites and farms from 1959-79.

Written and published originally in Tibetan, the book was translated into English by Matthew Akester, an Australian scholar of Tibetan studies.

"It's very important to have a written record of what took place," said Khetsun, speaking at a private gathering in Virginia to mark the book's release. "My generation suffered a lot, and I wanted to talk about the truth so that future generations will know what happened."

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