A new book offers tales of Tibetans in exile

ON A VISIT to Beijing in September, Nepal’s prime minister, Pushpa Kamal Dahal, promised to enact a “boundary-management system”, deporting Tibetans who try to flee via Nepal. Already the number of Tibetans reaching Nepal—braving hunger, high mountains, freezing temperatures and the guns of Chinese border-patrol officials—had fallen to a handful. From the 1980s to 2008, some 3,000 people came each year. In 2021, amid pandemic restrictions, ten did; last year, five. This raises the question of why China should still be so worried about a trickle of malcontents risking their lives to escape.Amy Yee’s engaging book, “Far from the Rooftop of the World”, helps provide an answer. From Nepal, most refugees try to reach Dharamsala in northern India, for an audience with their spiritual leader, . He and tens of thousands of followers have been based there since fleeing Tibet in 1959, after an uprising against Chinese rule.