Old Demons, New Deities

What role does writing play in today’s world? According to Tenzin Dickie and Tsering Yangzom Lama, literature can function as a tool for cultural resistance.

The two rising contemporary female writers will read from the new anthology Old Demons, New Deities, the first English-language anthology of contemporary Tibetan fiction, which was edited by Dickie. They will discuss living and working as Tibetan women writers and the importance of contemporary Tibetan writing.

Writers Sonam Tsomo and Lekey Leidecker will present a brief reading as an introduction to the event. The discussion will be moderated by a scholar of modern Tibetan literature, Lauran Hartley from Columbia University, and book signing with Tenzin Dickie will follow the program.

About the Book

The first English-language anthology of contemporary Tibetan fiction available in the West, Old Demons, New Deities brings together the best Tibetan writers from both Tibet and the diaspora, who write in Tibetan, English, and Chinese.

About the Speakers

Tenzin Dickie’s writings and translations have appeared in Tibetan Review, Indian Literature, Cultural Anthropology, The Washington Post online, Words Without Borders, and Modern Poetry in Translation, and are forthcoming in The Tibet Reader from Duke University Press and Modern English Poetry by Younger Indians from Sahitya Akademi. She was a 2014–15 fellow of the American Literary Translators’ Association. She is editor of The Treasury of Lives, a biographical encyclopedia of Tibet, Inner Asia, and the Himalayan region.

Tsering Yangzom Lama is a New York–based Tibetan writer who was born in Kathmandu and grew up in Vancouver. She is a 2018 Tin House Novel Scholar and has upcoming artist residencies at Hedgebrook and the Banff Centre for Arts and Creativity. Her fiction, plays, and poetry have been published in journals and magazines such as The Malahat Review, Grain, Vela, LaLit, Dolma, and Himal SouthAsian, as well as the anthologies House of Snow and Brave New Play Rites. Her work has been supported by grants from the Canada Council for the Arts and the Barbara Deming Memorial Fund. In recent years, she has been an artist-in-residence at the Lillian E. Smith Center, Omi Writers International, Catwalk Institute, WildAcres, and Playa Summerlake. Tsering earned an MFA in writing from Columbia, and she currently works as a storytelling advisor for Greenpeace International.

Dr. Lauran Hartley is the Tibetan studies librarian for the C. V. Starr East Asian Library at Columbia University and an adjunct lecturer in Tibetan literature for the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures. In addition to co-editing the book Modern Tibetan Literature and Social Change (Duke University Press, 2008) and serving as the Inner Asia book review editor for the Journal of Asian Studies, she has also published several articles on Tibetan intellectual history and literary translations. Her current research focuses on literary production and discourse from the eighteenth century to present.