Soul Like the Wind - A Record of Mary Hua's Journey Through Tibet (2007 Revised Edition)

Author: Mahuahua
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2007-01-01
Features: Mahuahua entered Tibet in 1976 and over the years, she traveled extensively across the region, publishing numerous works including poetry, prose, academic treatises, and long novels. The writing and research for Tibetan Northern Journey, Westward to Ali, The Soul Like the Wind, and Red Mountains of Eastern Tibet spanned over two to three decades, presenting both the natural and cultural landscapes of representative regions in this world-highland. The first three works were compiled into Across Tibet in the 1990s, becoming a bestseller both domestically and internationally. The literary world hailed them as "a rare gem in contemporary Chinese literature" and "a bridge between literature and anthropology," earning Mahuahua the title of a "writer-ethnographer." These four long documentary works are also regarded as the cornerstone of Chinese literary anthropology.
The Soul Like the Wind records various traditional agricultural cultural phenomena in central and southern Tibet, particularly in Lhasa and the Shannan region. Through tracing the history of the area and conducting in-depth interviews with diverse groups such as farmers, monks, and pilgrims in rural communities and monasteries, the work delves into the core of traditional contemplation—the soul. It is both a song of the soul and a questioning of the soul. Due to its profound observation and reflection, alongside vivid descriptions of numerous phenomena and characters, the book leaves readers deeply pondering long after reading.