Title

Circulation and Construction of Religious Themes in Contemporary Chinese Works by Tibetan Writers Tashi Dawa, A Lai, and Tsering Norbu

Author

Hung Shih-hui

Genre

Article

Pages

143-177

DOI

10.6503/THJCS.202003_50(1).0004

Download

PDF

Language

Chinese

Key words

Tibetan Chinese writers, religion, myths

Abstract

After the Opening of China in 1978, Tibetan writer Tashi Dawa wrote the short story “Tibet: A Soul Knotted on a Leather Thong西藏，繫在皮繩結上的魂.” Since then, Tibetan writers have established distinctive ethnic literary characteristics in their Chinese-language writings. The novelist A Lai, who won great fame in the 1990s through his work After the Dust Settled塵埃落定, and Tsering Norbu, who attracted attention for his short story “The Sheep Released to Life放生羊,” in turn became representative ethnic voices in Tibetan Chinese literature. Although these three writers have the same Tibetan cultural heritage, they have taken different approaches to their works. Whether they are forced or willing to write about Tibetan national themes, these contemporary Tibetan writers of Chinese literature have overcome language barriers and have “translated” religious cultures, hidden behind political restrictions, into the focus of their fictional narratives. While the three writers  have taken disparate narrative strategies in three different periods, their backgrounds are rooted in the Tibetan cultural spirit, which is derived from both “the mythological” and “the human.”