Tibet has always been a realm of fantasy as much as a province of reality. Remote and inaccessible, this mountain fastness has spawned myths ever since Herodotus wrote about its giant gold-digging ants. It has been the haunt of fabulous beasts: the ape-like yeti and the one-footed theurang, the wind horse and the snow lion. Magical powers have been attributed to its people, from rapt oracles and wandering sadhus to the Dalai Lama himself, whose person was so holy, the first British governor-general of Bengal heard, ‘that his excrements are sold as charms at a great price’.

Literary Review

Feb 2014

Categories

Piers Brendon

Cometh the Hour

From Great Power to PLC

Heir & Graces

Demonstrate or Procreate

Spooked Out

What’s Going on?

Home from Home?

The Audacity of Hype

Portrait of Pum

No Honest Mistake

A Most Violent Year

Never Was So Much Owed…

Her Militant Tendency

Learning the Lambeth Walk

Toff Negotiators

Vice & Viceroys

Among the Boneheads

Beginning to Swing

What Came After

Looking Back

For King and Countries

‘Low, Dishonest Decade’

What Winston Really Wanted

Black Dogs

The Fakir and the Bulldog