Error loading page.
Try refreshing the page. If that doesn't work, there may be a network issue, and you can use our self test page to see what's preventing the page from loading.
Learn more about possible network issues or contact support for more help.

Voice for the Voiceless

Over Seven Decades of Struggle with China for My Land and My People

ebook
0 of 2 copies available
Wait time: About 9 weeks
0 of 2 copies available
Wait time: About 9 weeks

INSTANT NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER

In this unique book offering personal, spiritual, and historical reflections—some never shared before—His Holiness the Dalai Lama tells the full story of his struggle with China to save Tibet and its people for nearly seventy-five years.

The Dalai Lama has had to contend with the People's Republic of China for about his entire life. He was sixteen years old when Communist China invaded Tibet in 1950, only nineteen when he had his first meeting with Chairman Mao in Beijing, and twenty-five when he was forced to escape to India and became a leader in exile. In the decades since, he has faced Communist China's leaders—Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao, and Xi Jinping—in his efforts to protect Tibet and its people, with their distinct language, culture, religion, history, and environment, in the face of the greatest possible obstacles.

Now, almost seventy-five years after China's initial invasion of Tibet, the Dalai Lama reminds the world of Tibet's unresolved struggle for freedom and the hardship his people continue to face in their own homeland. He offers his thoughts on the geopolitics of the region and shares how he personally was able to preserve his own humanity through the profound losses and challenges that threaten the very survival of the Tibetan people. This book captures the Dalai Lama's extraordinary life journey—discovering what it means to lose your home to a repressive invader and to build a life in exile; dealing with the existential crisis of a nation, its people, and its culture and religion; and envisioning the path forward.

Voice for the Voiceless is a powerful testimony from a global icon, who shares both his pain and his enduring hope in his people's ongoing quest to restore dignity and freedom.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

  • Formats

  • Languages

  • Reviews

    • Kirkus

      Starred review from April 15, 2025
      A subtly reasoned argument for a free Tibet after 75 years of Chinese occupation. "The responsibility for the nation and people of Tibet was placed upon me the moment I was recognized as the Dalai Lama at the age of two." When he became Tibet's leader at 16, the year Chinese soldiers swarmed into the formerly independent nation, he entered into numerous discussions with Mao Zedong ("truly unlike anyone I had met"), Zhou Enlai ("clever and smooth-talking"), and other Communist leaders, one of whom warned him that he should flee because Tibet would meet the same fate as Hungary, freshly crushed by the Soviets. When it became apparent that Mao intended to absorb Tibet as a strategic buffer and as part of the symbolic restoration of "territories that had once been part of the Manchu Qing empire," the Dalai Lama went into exile and, as he notes, has never since been able to return to his native land. "Mao probably realized that with me gone out of Tibet," he writes, "China would struggle with the question of legitimacy both of their authority and their presence in Tibet. He was right." Today, he adds, the regime of Xi Jinping is bent on assimilating Tibet, suppressing religious practices, and removing children to Mandarin-speaking boarding schools. Nevertheless, the Dalai Lama still finds hope for Tibet in the roiling undercurrents of Chinese society--the Tiananmen Square uprising of 1989, for example, which, he holds, by no means "marks the end of the Chinese people's quest for greater freedom, dignity, and democracy." A surprising discovery is that the Dalai Lama has long been willing to leave Tibet within the People's Republic of China, but with control over its own internal affairs and a democratic government. An autonomous Tibet? As envisioned here, that would surely be the Dalai Lama's greatest legacy.

      COPYRIGHT(2025) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

Formats

  • OverDrive Read
  • EPUB ebook

Languages

  • English

Loading