Modern Tibetan Literature and Social Change explores recent developments in literature produced by Tibetan writers in the Tibetan Autonomous Region and other Tibetan areas of the People's Republic of China, and by Tibetan writers living outside China. This truly groundbreaking volume brings together works that offer a panoramic view of a variegated body of literature that will serve to further the development of Tibetan literature studies and stimulate interest in ethnic minority literature in China and globally. A fundamental question posed by the volume is, “What is modern Tibetan literature in the contemporary world?” The rich array of essays provides insights into this complicated, “hotly contested” (p. xiii) question.
The introduction, written by editors Lauran R. Hartley and Patricia Schiaffini-Vedani, sketches the history of Tibetan literature and lays a foundation for the ensuing discussions of modern and contemporary Tibetan literature, which has grown exponentially since the early 1980s. A basic...
