15 Apr / Eat the Buddha: Life and Death in a Tibetan Town by Barbara Demick [in Booklist]
Let’s just agree that Casandra Campbell is not fluent in any Asian languages – which makes her an odd (mis)casting choice for a title set mostly in Tibet, populated by mostly Tibetan characters. That said, lauded journalist Barbara Demick’s extraordinary latest is a book to choose for the suberb content, which outweighs the serviceable-enough aural performance.
The title originates from the invading 1930s Chinese Red Army trying to survive the harsh Tibetan landscape, finding respite from relentless hunger in Buddhist monasteries where small (thought-to-be) Buddha statues (votive offerings called tormas, actually) made of flour and butter proved life-savingly edible.
Demick transforms decades of tumultuous, tyrannical Chinese-Tibetan history into necessary personal testimony by centering her narrative on remote Ngaba, located “roughly at the point where the Tibetan plateau collides with China,” and a handful of Ngaba-associated Tibetans colonized, brutalized, and banished by repeated Chinese incursions. Most notable is Gonpo, a princess forced into exile after losing her beloved family; most haunting is Dongtuk, whose half-brother would become part of a self-immolation statistic that began among Tibetan monks in 2009.
Once more, Demick delivers crucial insight.
Review: “Media,” Booklist Online, March 26, 2021
Readers: Adult
Published: 2020