Tsering Woeser is an award-winning Tibetan writer and poet. A child of the Cultural Revolution, she was raised and educated entirely in the Chinese language, and never learned to read or write in her native Tibetan. Ironically, it is this that has enabled her to give public expression for the first time in China to the emotions and experiences of the Tibetan people.
Woeser’s troubles began when her second book, the best-selling Notes on Tibet, was banned in 2003 for revealing opinions “harmful to the unification and solidarity of our nation.” Early this year, she was barred by Chinese authorities from leaving China for Oslo to accept the Norwegian Author’s Union’s Freedom of Expression Prize.
On March 10, after demonstrations began in Lhasa that would soon sweep throughout Tibet, she was placed under house arrest in Beijing. She continues to write from a small Beijing apartment where she lives with her husband, writer Wang Lixiong, posting poetry and essays on Tibetan culture and the current situation on the Internet and publishing her books in Taiwan.
In mainland China her books are banned, her three blogs have been shut down, she is unemployed and her movements remain restricted.
>> Click here to read more on Tsering Woeser's case
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