The first English-language anthology of contemporary Tibetan fiction available in the West, Old Demons, New Deities brings together the best Tibetan writers from both Tibet and the diaspora, who write in Tibetan, English and Chinese.
Modern Tibetan literature is just under forty years old: its birth dates to 1980, when the first Tibetan language journal was published in Lhasa. Since then, short stories have become one of the primary modern Tibetan art forms. Through these sometimes absurd, sometimes strange, and always moving stories, the English-reading audience gets an authentic look at the lives of ordinary, secular, modern Tibetans navigating the space between tradition and modernity, occupation and exile, the personal and the national. The setting may be the Himalayas, an Indian railway, or a New York City brothel, but the insights into an ancient culture and the lives and concerns of a modern people are real, and powerful.
For this anthology, editor and translator Tenzin Dickie has collected 21 short stories by 16 of the most respected and well known Tibetan writers working today, including Pema Bhum, Pema Tseden, Tsering Dondrup, Woeser, Tsering Wangmo Dhompa, Kyabchen Dedrol, and Jamyang Norbu.
Praise for Old Demons, New Deities
"This book is the first of its kind, and presents a little-known literature that few readers in the West have been able to access. With the well-crafted translations of this collection, Tibetan literature takes a step forward onto the global stage." -The Los Angeles Times Review of Books
"Elegant and accessible stories . . . This collection will go a long way to encouraging further interest in Tibetan literature." -Asian Review of Books
"A long-overdue and brilliantly edited volume on the Tibetan experience." -Gary Shteyngart
"Tenzin Dickie is to be congratulated on having gathered here these twenty-one short stories by arguably the best Tibetan authors writing today. Informatively introduced by her, this volume is a most welcome treat for anyone interested in literature per se and opens a much-needed window to the contemporary Tibetan short story for an international audience." - Leonard W.J. van der Kuijp, Professor of Tibetan and Himalayan Studies, Harvard University
"This anthology of contemporary fiction from Tibet, with stories from Tibet as well as the diaspora, paints the most real and haunting portraits of Tibetan lives in all their complexities and contradictions. Including luminaries like Woeser, Tsering Dondrup, Pema Bhum, and Jamyang Norbu, Old Demons, New Deities is a unique contribution to world literature." -Tsering Shakya, Canada Research Chair, Religion & Contemporary Society in Asia, University of British Columbia
"Elegant and accessible stories on a variety of themes by the most distinguished of modern Tibetan writers" -John Butler, Scroll.in
