Tibetan Epic for HM
by John F. Baker -- Publishers Weekly, 3/5/2001
What is described as the first literary epic of life in Tibet actually written by a Tibetan has been bought by senior editor Anton Mueller at Houghton Mifflin. It is Red Poppies by the mononymic Alai, which HM trade executive v-p Wendy Strothman says will dispel many myths, showing the mountainous country as riven by bloody feuds among autocratic warlords, not as a peaceful theocratic society. The book, which ranges from the turn of the century to the Chinese occupation in 1950, won China's highest literary award when it was published there, despite its politically sensitive content. Mueller made the world rights buy from Coast agent Sandra Dijkstra, who handles many Asian authors, and plans to publish early next year, in a translation by Howard Goldblatt. The 42-year-old Alai, whose work Mueller compares to that of Günter Grass and Gabriel García Márquez in its sweep, will make a national tour here when the book is published.
