With In the Forest of Faded Wisdom, Donald S. Lopez, Jr., brings to a Western audience the poetic work of the once controversial but now iconic Tibetan intellectual Gendun Chopel (Dge-'dun-chos-'phel, 1903–51). The value of compiling an anthology of Gendun Chopel's poetry in a bilingual version (Tibetan and English) cannot be underestimated. Although Gendun Chopel is considered “Tibet's greatest modern poet” (p. 1), only his life, philosophical views, and historical writings have been available to a specialized Western audience; his poetic output has been neglected by researchers so far. This book begins to address that scholarly gap.
For readers who are not familiar with Gendun Chopel, Tibetan poetry, or Tibet, In the Forest of Faded Wisdom will act as a great introduction to a refined, tongue-in-cheek, and moving oeuvre. It also will give a glimpse into self-reflection on Tibet and its neighbors in the second quarter of the twentieth...
