Last Seen in Lhasa by Claire Scobie is a few years old (2006) but only came my way recently.
The author is an English journalist who wangled her way onto a National-Geographic-style exploration trip to Pemako in SE Tibet in the early 1990s because she was vaguely interested in Tibetan Buddhism. On the trip she met a nun and they became friends, and this is the story of their friendship over 15 years and several more visits to Tibet, including a pilgrimage to Mount Kailash.
There's a lot about the unhappy everyday reality of life in Tibet under Chinese control in a period in which, as she says, the grandmother remembers growing up before the invasion, the mother has known nothing else, and the daughter speaks Chinese as a first language and dreams of Chinese fashions from Chengdu.
There's also a lot about the life of a wandering nun (probably one of the last generation to live like this), who goes from retreat to pilgrimage to retreat in appallingly impoverished circumstances but retains her commitment to the dharma.
Scobie keeps herself in the background of the book but was obviously deeply engaged in Tibetan Buddhism and politics for most of the period the book covers.
Kim
Last Seen in Lhasa
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- Kim O'Hara
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