EAT THE BUDDHA

From the author of the definitive book on life in North Korea, Nothing to Envy, comes the first narrative non-fiction book on Tibet in decades, giving the world an inside look into the region of six million people about which very little is known.

Disenchanted westerners turn to Tibetan Buddhism to salve their existential anxieties, but know little about the six million people living in Tibet. Scholars cannot get visas from the Chinese government, while journalists are banned entirely from most of Tibet. Barbara Demick intends to rectify this with her new book, Eat the Buddha, which will discuss what it means to be a Tibetan in the 21st century. The book will take place in Aba, a town perched at 12,000 feet altitude in Sichuan province on the eastern edge of the Tibetan plateau. The place has been the engine of Tibetan resistance for decades and in recent years made headlines around the world because of the large number of young Tibetans who immolated themselves in protest of Chinese polices. In this coming of age story we will follow Dongtuk, a 17-year old Tibetan boy who needs to decide if he will follow a friend into flaming martyrdom, redeeming himself for his cowardice in the past.

Barbara Demick is the author of Logavina Street: Life and Death in a Sarajevo Neighborhood and the nternationally acclaimed Nothing to Envy: Ordinary Lives in North Korea. She is the winner of numerous awards, like the 2011 Ryszard Kapuscinski award and the 2010 Samuel John Prize. She was the 2011 finalist for the National Book Award for nonfiction as well as the 2011 finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award.