Mick Brown's basic story is true, well known and, despite his book's subtitle, perfectly credible. In January 2000, Gyalwa Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje, the spiritual leader of a major Tibetan Buddhist school, and the only supreme incarnation to be recognised by both the Dalai Lama and Beijing, escaped from Tibet into India.

The escape, over and through hundreds of miles of frozen mountains, disturbed Beijing and New Delhi. After the Karmapa had made his way to the Dalai Lama's refuge in exile in Dharamsala in north India, the Indians placed him under a three-year house arrest to subdue Chinese rage.

As is always

Literary Review

Apr 2004

Categories

Jonathan Mirsky

Sweet and Sour

Case Closed?

They Have Been at the Core of Great Events

Tutorials from a Transvestite

Dog Days

What’s Behind the Blue Door?

Communist Poster Boy

Invasive Procedures

Flow Country

A Right Way to Remember?

Girls Allowed

Dig for Victory

Crossing the Yalu

Dining at Lizard’s Thicket

Escape from Entebbe

Wild West

Sage Government

Mission Impossible

One Man and His Lama

A Sorority of Character

Stealing the Crown’s Jewel

Tale From Tiananmen

The Shanghai Beat

Rebel Province

Picture The Revolution