Eat the Buddha

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Award-winning journalist Barbara Demick delves into one of the most concealed regions of the world, focusing on a Tibetan town situated at eleven thousand feet, notorious for being difficult for foreigners to access. Ngaba was an early site of interaction between Tibetans and Chinese Communists; in the 1930s, Mao Zedong's Red Army sought refuge in the Tibetan plateau during the Chinese Civil War. Starving, they looted monasteries and consumed religious statues made of flour and butter, an act seen by Tibetans as sacrilegious. This history positioned Ngaba as a center of Tibetan resistance, leading to dramatic acts of self-immolation. The narrative spans decades of Tibetan and Chinese history through the lives of Demick's subjects, including a princess whose family perished during the Cultural Revolution, a young nomad radicalized in Kirti monastery, an entrepreneur in love with a Chinese woman, a poet risking everything for resistance, and a schoolgirl torn between family and the allure of Chinese wealth. Each faces the dilemma of resisting or joining the Chinese, balancing Buddhist teachings with the urge to fight. Demick provides a nuanced and unvarnished portrayal of contemporary Tibetan life, revealing the struggle to maintain culture, faith, and language against a powerful, technologically advanced adversary.