Tibetan Sky

Ning Ken finds mountains of meaning in philosophical novel based on the complicated history of Tibet

Wang Mojie’s dreams wilted in the Beijing heat.

Leaving behind its constricting avenues at the end of the millennium,¹ the disillusioned academic seeks meaning in Lhasa. Instead, he finds Ukyi Lhamo.

The soul of every party, her studied Parisian charms hide an inner rootlessness. Raised by a mother who stifled her beliefs to protect all she held dear, she searches for her grandmother,² the key to her lost heritage.

Crossing paths among a gathering of self-exiled intellectuals living among the cool mountains, the two bond on the sidelines of a fierce philosophical debate. However, as Wang Mojie’s masochistic fantasies resurface, can they cling to what they mutually lack? Or was it never possible to make peace with zero?

¹ After a divorce sparked by his unusual perversions

² A Tibetan Buddhist nun with a severed aristocratic lineage