The Handsome Monk and Other Stories

This is an interesting mix of stories in a unusual style (vs Western writing). An excellent introduction provides helpful context and previews that really made a difference by setting me up well for a good read. These are mostly simple stories with Ralo being the highlight since it's the longest story and the best known (to the extent that it's known). Some of the stories are funny. A good, different kind of book.

I definitely won't recommend this one to our library patrons. The writing it bad and the stories are not funny. Just disappointing all around.

The Handsome Monk and Other Stories fell flat for me. I am not sure if it was just lost in translation or just not for me.

Stories with an easy-to-read, yarn-like quality. Linked by setting -- a fictional nomad county, based on the author's home in Amdo -- and by recurring cast, including a story-collector named Döndrup. From the introduction I feared black & bitter, but I found the satire left plenty of room for affection and more plaintive notes. My clear favourite was 'Black Fox Valley' with its storyline typical of Döndrup's themes (as the introduction pointed out): nomads' collision with modernity.

This collection of Tibetan short stories may be the first Tibetan book I have ever read. Dondrup is a well-known writer in Tibet. The introduction by the translator (Christopher Peacock) is excellent in laying out some historic/cultural groundwork, though I know I still missed things in the stories.

Dondrup is funny and witty. Scathing in some stories. The stories all focus on different aspects of life in modern Tibet--nomadic life, monks and lamas, marriage and children, and the ever-present fact of Chinese occupation is lurking in the background when not in the foreground. Nomads are hassled or at war with Chinese villagers who have been settled onto nomads' traditional lands, settled into towns, deal with cadres and other aspects of Chinese rule, AIDS. Many of the stories have crossover characters (I wish I had taken notes on the characters' names). Another character, Alak Drong, appears in many stories and is an unscrupulous monk, he is very important to Dondrup's criticisms of modern Tibetan Buddhism. And yes, there are even Western tourists who make an appearance.

My two favorite stories--both are excellent 5-star stories on their own-- are A Show to Delight the Masses (a corrupt official must justify his behavior to the Lord of Death; in verse and prose) and Black Fox Valley (about the settlement of nomads).