Alai

b. 1959, Maerkang, Sichuan

Writer

Alai is a Tibetan writer publishing in Chinese. He was born into a peasant family and taught both primary and middle school after graduating from college in 1980. He began to publish in 1982 and became a professional writer in 1984. He later moved to Chengdu and has since worked as an editor for a science fiction magazine. His first collection of short stories was published in 1989, and his first volume of poetry in 1990. Red Poppies (Chen’ai luoding), his first novel, appeared in 1998 and won the Mao Dun prize (see literary awards). He has also published volumes of essays and interviews and produced television scripts. His works have been translated into several foreign languages. The 2002 publication of the English translation of his novel was a landmark event for Tibetan writers in the PRC.

Alai’s writings are set mostly in his homeland, the Tibetan region of Kham, historically beyond the rule of Lhasa. They exhibit a deep love of the land and its independent folk spirit combined with soul-searching reflections on the environmental degradation, social decay and cultural displacement in modern times. Red Poppies describes the turbulence and collapse of a traditional chiefdom prior to 1949. It is narrated by an idiot, born to a Tibetan father and a Han Chinese mother, and highlights the hybrid culture of the border region. Epical in historical scope yet poetic in prose, this novel of ‘idiocy’ evokes a similar experience to reading Faulkner or Marquez.

See also: Tibetans, culture of; Ma Yuan

Further reading

Alai (2003). Red Poppies: A Novel of Tibet. Trans. Howard Goldblatt and Sylvia Li-chun Li. Boston: Mariner Books.

YUE GANG