The Autobiography of a Tibetan Monk - Softcover

With the help of translator Tsering Shakya, Palden Gyatso has crafted his story into a fluid yet surprisingly dispassionate account of his time in prison. Still, it is almost impossible not to be swept along on waves of pity, horror, and compassion as he suffers unspeakably at the hands of his tormentors. To understand the plight of one Tibetan monk is to step behind the eyes of an entire people. --Brian Bruya

Palden Gyatso was born in a Tibetan village in 1933 and became an ordained Buddhist monk eighteen years later. Through sheer determination, he won a place as a student at Deprung Monastery, one of Tibet's "Three Greats," where he came to spiritual and intellectual maturity. However, Tibet was enduring political changes that would soon alter his life irrevocably.

When Communist China invaded Tibet in 1950, it embarked on a program of land reform and "thought reform" that would eventually affect all of Tibet's citizens and nearly decimate its ancient culture. Under Mao, Tibet's sovereignty was systematically destroyed: books were burned, history altered, and art plundered in the name of "reuniting" Tibet with China. The religious orders were denounced as exploitative and monks were forced to attend pro-socialist study sessions in place of study and worship. In 1959, along with thousands of other monks, Palden Gyatso was forced into labor camps and prisons. He would spend the next thirty-three years of his life being tortured, interrogated, and persecuted simply for the strength of his beliefs, for being a monk.

In 1992 Palden Gyatso was released from prison and escaped across the Himalayas to India, smuggling with him the instruments of his torture. Since then, he has devoted himself to revealing the extent of Chinese oppression in Tibet and the atrocities he endured. Palden Gyatso's story bears witness to the resilience of the human spirit and to the strength of Tibet's proud civilization, faced with cultural genocide.

"I believe that few readers of this book will fail to be moved by Palden Gyatso's story and the tenacity and dedication it displays. Like Palden Gyatso, I am optimistic.... If he has proved nothing else, Palden Gyatso has demonstrated that we are not helpless and that even individuals can make a difference."--the Dalai Lama, from the foreword

"In writing this wrenching memoir of extraordinary suffering, resistance, and endurance, Palden Gyatso has testified not only to the pain of countless individuals but to the devastation of a nation."--The New York Times Book Review

"To readers of this memoir, however untraveled, Tibet will never again seem remote or unfamiliar.... Gyatso reminds us that the language of suffering is universal."--Library Journal

"Has the ring of undeniable truth.... Palden Gyatso's clear-sighted eloquence (in Tsering Shakya's fluent translation) makes his tale even more engrossing."--San Francisco Chronicle Book Review

Since his escape from Chinese-occupied Tibet, Palden Gyatso has lived in Dharamasala, in northern India. He has traveled widely in Europe and the United States to call attention to the plight of the hundreds of political prisoners still behind bars in Tibet. In 1995 he gave evidence at the United Nations Commission on Human Rights in Geneva.

Tsering Shakya was born in Tibet and fled to India with his family after the Chinese invasion. Later he won a scholarship to study at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London. He has addressed the European Parliament as an expert witness on the current situation in Tibet and regularly contributes to radio and television discussions on the subject.