There are eight of Tsering Norbu's short stories in this book: the barley-wine-fueled Robber's Tavern and the changeable faces of its patrons; Red Dust Compassion, in which the Amu, the girl with the eyes as kind as the beloved female Buddha, has a secret wish she will carry to her grave; Chumik Shenko, where lost souls from the massacre meet nightly with a sculptor, in his usual haunt, a house by the roadside; Vet Norbu, whose two wives visit Ganden Monastery together to pray for his early reincarnation and soon form a sisterly relationship; Hurrying Home for the Funeral, in which a Tibetan woman and Han man meet by chance and marry, before separating on account of unnegotiable differences and sparking tragedy for generations to come; Hearts of Yartsa Gunbu, in which cordyceps-obsessed foragers fill golden grassy hills to pick the caterpillar fungus…

With every word of scripture or prayer you say, you bring the Buddha into your heart.

In straightforward, natural prose, and with empathy and an accomplished touch, Tsering Norbu incants story after story about love and compassion from the hallowed, sublime lands of Tibet.

About the author

Tsering Norbu is a Tibetan author. Born in Lhasa in 1965, he graduated from the Tibetan literature department of Tibet University in 1986. He is currently Executive Vice Chairman of the Tibetan Writers Association and editor-in-chief of Tibetan Literature. His works include the short story collection A Released Sheep, the novella Frontier, and the novel Prayers in the Wind (tr. Joshua Dyer). He won the fifth Chomolunga (Everest) Prize for Literature for his short story The Assassin, the fifth Lu Xun Literary Prize for his short story A Released Sheep, the fifth Tibetan New Era Literary Prize for his novella Frontier, and the sixth Wang Zengqi Literature Award for his 2019 short story Red Dust Compassion.