Alai (; ; born 1959 in

Sichuan Sichuan is a province in Southwestern China, occupying the Sichuan Basin and Tibetan Plateau—between the Jinsha River to the west, the Daba Mountains to the north, and the Yunnan–Guizhou Plateau to the south. Its capital city is Cheng ...

Province) is a Chinese-language poet and novelist of

Rgyalrong Gyalrong or rGyalrong (), also rendered Jiarong ( zh, t=嘉絨語, s=嘉绒语, p=Jiāróngyǔ), or sometimes Gyarung, is a subbranch of the Gyalrongic languages spoken by the Gyalrong people in Western Sichuan, China. Lai et al. (2020) refer ...

Tibetan descent. He is also a former editor of ''

Science Fiction World ''Science Fiction World (Sci-Fi World; SFW)'' (, Kehuan Shijie), begun in 1979, is a monthly science fiction magazine published in the People's Republic of China, headquartered in Chengdu, Sichuan. It dominates the Chinese science fiction magazi ...

''.

Works

Alai's notable novel '' Red Poppies'', published in 1998, follows a family of Tibetan chieftains, the Maichi, during the decade or so before the “liberation” of

Tibet Tibet (; ''Böd''; ), or Greater Tibet, is a region in the western part of East Asia, covering much of the Tibetan Plateau and spanning about . It is the homeland of the Tibetan people. Also resident on the plateau are other ethnic groups s ...

by the

People's Liberation Army The People's Liberation Army (PLA) is the military of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and the People's Republic of China (PRC). It consists of four Military branch, services—People's Liberation Army Ground Force, Ground Force, People's ...

in 1951. Their

feudal Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was a combination of legal, economic, military, cultural, and political customs that flourished in Middle Ages, medieval Europe from the 9th to 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a way of struc ...

life in the Tibetan borderlands, narrated by the youngest "idiot" son, is described as cruel, romantic, and full of intrigue (with the

Annexation of Tibet by the People's Republic of China Tibet came under the control of China, People's Republic of China (PRC) after the Ganden Phodrang, Government of Tibet signed the Seventeen Point Agreement which the 14th Dalai Lama ratified on 24 October 1951, but later repudiated on the grou ...

presented as a great advance for the Tibetan peasantry). ''Red Poppies'' won the 5th Mao Dun Literary Prize in 2000 and was selected as a finalist for the

Kiriyama Prize The Kiriyama Prize was an international literary award awarded to books about the Pacific Rim and South Asia. Its goal was to encourage greater understanding among the peoples and nations of the region. Established in 1996, the prize was last awar ...

in 2002. In 2013, Alai participated in the International Writing Program's Fall Residency at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, IA.

Bibliography

* * *

Filmography

*'' The Climbers'' (2019)

References

External links

''Red Poppies: A Novel of Tibet'' review by Gang Yue from University of North Carolina
1959 births Living people 21st-century Chinese poets Writers from Ngawa Poets from Sichuan Tibetan poets International Writing Program alumni Mao Dun Literature Prize laureates Chinese male novelists 20th-century Chinese novelists 21st-century Chinese novelists 20th-century Chinese male writers 21st-century male writers {{China-writer-stub