Sorrow Mountain: The Journey of a Tibetan Warrior Nun [Anglais] [Relié]

Born in 1933 as the only child of a Tibetan village chieftain in the eastern province of Kham, Pachen refused an arranged marriage in hope of leading a monastic life. As Chinese troops hardened their grip on Tibet in 1958, she assumed her father's role upon his death, helping to lead the Tibetan resistance until her capture by the Chinese in 1960. Told to confess her crimes against the Chinese army and that if she didn't yield she would die, the Tibetan stood her ground. "When our time comes, each of us dies. There is nothing we can do," she explains. Although hundreds of thousands of Tibetans were killed along with many wild animals (to teach Tibetans to surrender their "superstitious" reverence of living things), Pachen was imprisoned for 21 years instead. Near starvation, she would rejoice if she found a worm to eat in the soil that she worked at labor camps. (One prisoner died from gouging out the innards of a dead horse buried in the field and consuming them, feces and all.) Asked what saved her, she replied, "The wish to see His Holiness," the Dalai Lama. As Pachen, who was released in 1980, concludes in an account that is more notable for its wrenching drama and its author's courage than for the style in which it is told, "As for me, the story will go like this: She led her people to fight against the Chinese.... She worked to save the ancient spiritual teachings. When I die, just my story will be left." Agent, Eileen Cope of Barbara Lowenstein Associates; foreign rights sold in the U.K., Italy, Germany and Holland; 7-city author tour. (Feb.)
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

As a contented teen, Pachen, daughter of a Tibetan village chieftain, dreamt of a life devoted to Buddhist practice. But she encountered numerous, intractable obstacles. First, her father arranged an unwanted marriage--and, although he eventually relented, more troubles soon appeared. In 1958 the Chinese occupied Eastern Tibet; the resulting distress contributed to her father's death and prompted Pachen to take a leadership role in the resistance. She was captured and spent 21 years in brutal Chinese prisons as her country and culture disintegrated at the hands of the occupiers. This plain-spoken chronicle joins Palden Gyatso's The Autobiography of a Tibetan Monk (Grove, 1997) in illuminating the overwhelming religious, cultural, and human tragedy in recent Tibetan history. Recommended for all popular collections despite this reviewer's discomfort with Donnelley's (Boundary Water) admission that she has "taken liberties to include outside stories and details where necessary in order to give a fuller picture of the tragedy ."--James R. Kuhlman, Univ. of North Carolina Lib., Asheville
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Pachen was imprisoned for 21 years by the Chinese because of her resistance to their invasion of her country. Fearful of recapture following her release in 1981, she escaped to India, where she practices her religion and advocates for Tibetan causes. In this book, she recalls a carefree girlhood as the only child of a Tibetan chieftain. When her father died, shortly after the Chinese invasion began, Pachen tried to merge her need to fulfill the duties of her father's only heir--to assist the resistance effort--and her personal spiritual needs. She helps assemble an army and plots resistance strategy. And although it is against Buddhist principles, she vows to kill, if necessary, to resist the Chinese invasion. When it comes, Pachen must flee her village and is later captured and imprisoned. Through her religion, she was able to separate the spiritual from the physical and thus endure brutal torture. Pachen intersperses the account of her life and spiritual journey with Buddhist prayers and dreams that show a desire for peace and enlightened spirituality. Vanessa Bush