Old Demons, New Deities: Twenty-One Short Stories from Tibet

by Tenzin Dickie (Editor)

Overview

The first English-language anthology of contemporary Tibetan fiction available in the West, Old Demons, New Deities brings together the best Tibetan writers from both Tibet and the diaspora, who write in Tibetan, English and Chinese.

Modern Tibetan literature is just under forty years old: its birth dates to 1980, when the first Tibetan language journal was published in Lhasa. Since then, short stories have become one of the primary modern Tibetan art forms. Through these sometimes absurd, sometimes strange, and always moving stories, the English-reading audience gets an authentic look at the lives of ordinary, secular, modern Tibetans navigating the space between tradition and modernity, occupation and exile, the personal and the national. The setting may be the Himalayas, an Indian railway, or a New York City brothel, but the insights into an ancient culture and the lives and concerns of a modern people are real, and powerful.

For this anthology, editor and translator Tenzin Dickie has collected 21 short stories by 16 of the most respected and well known Tibetan writers working today, including Pema Bhum, Pema Tseden, Tsering Dondrup, Woeser, Tsering Wangmo Dhompa, Kyabchen Dedrol, and Jamyang Norbu.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781944869519
Publisher:	OR Books
Publication date:	12/05/2017
Pages:	304
Sales rank:	640,348
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

TENZIN DICKIE is a writer and literary translator living in New York. Her writings have been published in Indian Literature, Apogee Journal, Tibetan Review, Himal SouthAsian, and Cultural Anthropology, and anthologized in The Yellow Nib: Modern English Poetry by Indians from The Seamus Heaney Centre for Poetry and The Tibet Reader, forthcoming from Duke UniversityPress. Her translations have been published in The Washington Post online and Modern Poetry in Translation. A 2014-2015 ALTA Fellow of the American Literary Translators’ Association, she holds an MFA from Columbia Universityand a BA from Harvard University. She is an editor at treasuryoflives.org, a biographical encyclopedia of significant figures from Tibet, Inner Asia, and the Himalayan Region.

Read an Excerpt

From "The Connection" by Bhuchung D. Sonam

"You have a background," said the police inspector.

It was the first thing he said after ordering me to sit down in the chair in front of his desk. He knew me from my many previous visits to the police station.

"I…I…" I intentionally fumbled. Having read enough detective stories and crime thrillers, I knew what "background" meant, especially when used by a senior police officer.

"Young man, go on, what do you say to that?" he said.

"Sir, I don't understand what you mean," I answered respectfully. I had found that things often worked in my favor when I used polite language and lots of "sirs" with government officials and policemen. These saabs liked to use authoritative language to reinforce their positions of superiority. On the white wall behind the inspector's head was a map of India on a rusty nail and a two-year-old calendar.

Perhaps the calendar was kept there for its image; an intimidating painting of the four-armed wrathful goddess Kali extending her tongue to her chin and adorned with a necklace of human skulls.

"Kabir, pani lao," the inspector commanded his peon. A little later a man appeared with two glasses of water. He placed them on the table, bowed a little, and left the room.

"Think . . . think about where you travelled and who you met over the last year," said the inspector, pushing one of the glasses towards me. I was taken aback when he said "year." I thought about how I should respond.

"Sir, I just came here to ask about my Identity Certificate. The police inquiry has not come through yet. It's been two years since I applied," I said. In fact, it had been more than two years. An IC is the yellow booklet issued to Tibetan refugees as a travel document, in lieu of a passport. It was a complex and laborious procedure to get one. When I called and got through to someone at the Regional Passport Office about the status of my IC, the lady who answered directed me to go to the local police station, since the necessary background clearance must come from there. The police had to issue a No Objection letter and send my file back to the passport office. If the slow-motioned bureaucratic juggling went well, the travel document would be issued within a few years. But any forward movement in the process would not happen without a letter from the local police station. And this was how I landed at the police station.

"I know. We have your file in there," the inspector said. He pointed to a cupboard packed with rows of spineless yellow cardboard folders each containing forms and handwritten observations clamped together by a neatly knotted white string.

He took a long sip from his glass and made a phone call most likely to someone of equal rank as himself. He mentioned Case Number Twenty-Five a few times and said that he had had no new leads. I stared at the files and at the computer. The keyboard had turned yellowish from age and overuse and the Logitech mouse looked tired. There was a distinct mark of index fingers on the right click button. A 3D text screen With You, For You Always revolved slowly on the monitor. The CPU swished as the system fan blew out hot air from the hard disk. I felt anxiety building inside me. The phone call ended with a Hindi maxim that could be loosely be translated as "the fish will land in the net."

"So, tell me." he said. The inspector rose from his chair, cracked his fingers and threw a few punches with his right fist into the open palm of his left hand. I knew about police beatings. But the inspector did not look like the type who would use his belt. His oil-soaked hair was carefully parted from the left to the right side of his head and his thick black mustache was disciplined downward into two horn-tipped ends, touching the edges of his mouth symmetrically. He wore gold-colored spectacles and had two pens sticking out of his shirt pocket. He looked like a seasoned teacher, except for his khaki uniform. Nevertheless, I was scared.

"Sir, I don't know what to tell you," I said. "I am a college student and I applied for an Identity Certificate. I hope to get a scholarship to study abroad."

"Good. That is good." He paced around the office. It was a hot day. The ceiling fan creaked as it circulated stale air. All the windows were closed. The room was suffocating.

"Tell me about your friends."

"Sir?"

"Your friends, tell me about your friends," he repeated.

"I have many friends, sir." Now I began to see what this was about. I hesitated, "Sir, you want me to name them?"

Table of Contents

Table of Contents (by title and author)

Introduction

Wink
Pema Bhum

The Silence
Jamyang Norbu

Ralo
Tsering Dondrup

Under the Shadow
Bhuchung D. Sonam

The Agate and the Singer
Kyabchen Dedrol

The New Road Controversy
Takbum Gyal

Nyima Tsering's Tears
Woeser

Hunter's Moon
Jamyang Norbu

The Flight of the Wind Horse
Pema Tsewang Shastri

Letter for Love
Tsering Wangmo Dhompa

The Connection
Bhuchung D. Sonam

Light
Tsering Lama

The Season of Retreats
Tsering Namgyal Khortsa

The Dream of a Wandering Minstrel
Pema Tseden

The Fifth Man
Tenzin Dorjee

Winter in Patlikuhl
Tenzin Dickie

Snow Pilgrimage
Kyabchen Dedrol

Zumki's Snowlion Tenzin Tsundue

Dolma
Dhondup Tashi Rekjong

Tips
Pema Bhum

The Valley of the Black Foxes
Tsering Dondrup

Contributor biographies

Acknowledgments

Interviews

The first English-language anthology of contemporary Tibetan fiction available in the West, Old Demons, New Deities brings together the best Tibetan writers from both Tibet and the diaspora, who write in Tibetan, English and Chinese.

Editorial Reviews

Praise for Old Demons, New Deities

"This book is the first of its kind, and presents a little-known literature that few readers in the West have been able to access. With the well-crafted translations of this collection, Tibetan literature takes a step forward onto the global stage." —The Los Angeles Times Review of Books

"Elegant and accessible stories . . . This collection will go a long way to encouraging further interest in Tibetan literature.” —Asian Review of Books

"A long-overdue and brilliantly edited volume on the Tibetan experience." —Gary Shteyngart

"Tenzin Dickie is to be congratulated on having gathered here these twenty-one short stories by arguably the best Tibetan authors writing today. Informatively introduced by her, this volume is a most welcome treat for anyone interested in literature per se and opens a much-needed window to the contemporary Tibetan short story for an international audience." — Leonard W.J. van der Kuijp, Professor of Tibetan and Himalayan Studies, Harvard University

"This anthology of contemporary fiction from Tibet, with stories from Tibet as well as the diaspora, paints the most real and haunting portraits of Tibetan lives in all their complexities and contradictions. Including luminaries like Woeser, Tsering Dondrup, Pema Bhum, and Jamyang Norbu, Old Demons, New Deities is a unique contribution to world literature." —Tsering Shakya, Canada Research Chair, Religion & Contemporary Society in Asia, University of British Columbia

"Elegant and accessible stories on a variety of themes by the most distinguished of modern Tibetan writers" –John Butler, Scroll.in

From the Publisher