About the Contributors

Alai was born to Tibetan peasant parents in Maerkang, Sichuan Province, in 1959. In 1980, he graduated from Maerkang Normal College and began teaching. He published his first collection of poetry in 1990. He now concentrates on writing fiction and lives in Chengdu, the capital of Sichuan Province, where he works on the staff of the magazine Science Fiction World (kehuan shijie). The poems in this issue of Manoa appeared in Listening to Tibet (lingting xizang), published by Yunnan Renmin Chubanshe (Yunnan People's Publishing Co.) in China in 1999.

Hil Anderson has lived in Taiwan, where he researched contemporary poetry. He is pursuing a joint degree at Harvard University and Georgetown Law Center.

Herbert J. Batt has a doctorate from the University of Toronto and has taught at Shanghai Normal University, Shanghai University of Finance and Economics, and Beijing Capital University. The translator of numerous works from Chinese, he is editor and translator of Tales of Tibet: Sky Burials, Wind Horses, and Prayer Wheels.

Kevin Bowen is director of the William Joiner Center for the Study of War and Social Consequences at the University of Massachusetts-Boston. His most recent collection of poetry is Forms of Prayer at the Hotel Edison; with Nguyen Ba Chung, he translated from Vietnamese Distant Road: Selected Poems of Nguyen Duy.

Sharon May Brown photographed, researched, and wrote about Khmer Rouge atrocities for the Columbia University Center for the Study of Human Rights. Her photographs have appeared in the books Seeking Shelter: Cambodians in Thailand and The Saving Rain. Her story "Kwek," about a young boy who rebels against the Khmer Rouge, appeared in the summer 1999 issue of Manoa.

Trevor Carolan is a contributing editor for Shambhala Sun magazine. He teaches at Simon Fraser University in British Columbia.

Tashi Dawa was born in Batang County, Sichuan Province, in 1959. His father is Tibetan, and his mother is Han Chinese; both are Chinese-speaking Communist Party cadres. His first fiction appeared in 1979; in 1993, he published the novel Turmoil in Shangri-La (saodong de xiangbala). Regarded as the leading Tibetan author writing in Chinese, he has had his work translated into English, German, French, Italian, and Japanese. "Chimi, the Free Man" appears in Tibet: The Mysterious Age (xizang yinmi suiyue), published by Changjuang Wenyi Chubanshe (Yangzi River Publishing Co.) in China in 1996. "The Glory of the Wind Horse" appears in Listening to Tibet (lingting xizang), published by Yunnan Renmin Chubanshe (Yunnan People's Publishing Co.) in China in 1999.

Yangdon Dhondup was born in India in 1970. She was educated in Switzerland and graduated in Chinese studies from London University's School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). Currently a doctoral student at SOAS, she is researching Tibetan authors writing in Chinese.

Xue Di was born in Beijing in 1957. Shortly after participating in the Tiananmen Square demonstrations in 1989, he left China and became a fellow in Brown University's Freedom to Write program. His published works include Heart into Soil, Flames, Trembling, and Dream Talk. He has twice received a Hellman-Hammett award, sponsored by the Fund for Free Expression, an affiliate of Human Rights Watch in New York.

Dpa' dar formerly worked for the Publishing and Translation Office of Gannan Prefecture, Gansu Province. He is now retired and lives outside Lanzhou. His work in this issue received an award for "outstanding poem" from the Gansu Provincial Literary Association. The poem first appeared in Chinese in the literary magazine Gesanghua and was later translated into Tibetan and published in the literary magazine New Moon (zla zer). The version in this issue was translated from a transcription of the Chinese original.

Geyang was born in 1972 in Dagyab, located in the Kham region of eastern Tibet. In 1989, at the age of seventeen, she graduated from Nanjing Meteorological Institute, and from 1996 to 1997 she studied writing at the Lu Xun Institute in Beijing. Her stories have won a number of prizes. She now works for the Tibetan Meteorological Bureau and reads the nightly weather report on Lhasa television. The story in...