The Tibetan-English Novel: A Post-Buddhist Form?

Abstract

Although most Tibetans who have chosen English as a language of literary expression are poets (e.g. Chögyam Trungpa, Tenzin Tsundue, Tsering Wangmo Dhompa, Bhuchung Sonam1), there is also a slowly growing number of Tibetans writing narrative fiction in English. This paper discusses how the four Tibetan-English novels written so far engage the Tibetan Buddhist heritage in a new and hybrid context. The novels in question are Tsewang Pemba’s Idols on the Path (1966), Jamyang Norbu’s The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes (1999), Thubten Samphel’s Falling Through the Roof (2008) and Tsering Namgyal Khortsa’s The Tibetan Suitcase (2013). However, due to the length of this paper, I shall deal with only the first two and older novels in depth, making some marginal references to Falling Through the Roof and The Tibetan Suitcase, but not fully engaging in their analysis.