Everand Logo

Welcome to Everand!

  • Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

    Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

    Unavailable
    Escape from the Land of Snows: The Young Dalai Lama's Harrowing Flight to Freedom and the Making of a Spiritual Hero
    Unavailable
    Escape from the Land of Snows: The Young Dalai Lama's Harrowing Flight to Freedom and the Making of a Spiritual Hero
    Unavailable
    Escape from the Land of Snows: The Young Dalai Lama's Harrowing Flight to Freedom and the Making of a Spiritual Hero
    Audiobook8 hours

    Escape from the Land of Snows: The Young Dalai Lama's Harrowing Flight to Freedom and the Making of a Spiritual Hero

    Written by Stephan Talty

    Narrated by Shishir Kurup

    4/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    On the evening of March 17, 1959, as the people of Tibet braced for a violent power grab by Chinese occupiers-one that would forever wipe out any vestige of national sovereignty-the twenty-four-year-old Dalai Lama, Tibet's political and spiritual leader, contemplated the impossible. The task before him was immense: to slip past a cordon of crack Chinese troops ringing his summer palace and, with an escort of 300, journey across the highest terrain in the world and over treacherous Himalayan passes to freedom-one step ahead of pursuing Chinese soldiers.

    Mao Zedung, China's ruthless Communist dictator, had pinned his hopes for total Tibetan submission on controlling the impressionable Dalai Lama. So beloved was the young ruler-so identified with his country's essence-that for him to escape might mean perpetual resistance from a population unwilling to tolerate an increasingly brutal occupation. The Dalai Lama's minders sent word to the Tibetan rebels and CIA-trained guerrillas who waited on the route: His Holiness must escape-at all costs.

    In many ways, the 14th Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, was unprepared for the epic journey awaiting him. Twenty-two years earlier, government search parties, guided by prophecies and omens, had arrived at the boy's humble peasant home and subjected the two-year-old to a series of tests. After being declared the reincarnation of Tibet's previous ruler, the boy was brought to Lhasa to learn the secrets of Buddhism and the ways of ultimate power. Forced in the ensuing two decades to cope with aching loneliness and often stifling ritual-and compelled to suppress his mischievous personality-Gyatso eventually proved himself a capable leader. But no previous Dalai Lama had ever taken on a million Communist Chinese soldiers bent on stamping out Tibetan freedom.

    To keep his country's dream of independence alive by means of a government in exile, the young ruler would not only have to brave battalions of enemy soldiers and the whiteout conditions waiting on the slopes of the Himalayas' highest peaks, he'd have to overcome a different type of blindness: the naïveté intrinsic to his sheltered palace life and his position as leader of a people who considered violence deeply taboo.

    His mind made up, the young Dalai Lama set off on his audacious journey to India while behind him a Chinese army rolled over Lhasa, its advance hunter patrols in fierce pursuit of the man they most coveted. The 14th's escape was an act of daring and defiance that represented Tibet's last hope, and so the world watched, transfixed, as the gentle monk's journey unfolded.

    Emotionally powerful and irresistibly page-turning, Escape from the Land of Snows is simultaneously a portrait of the inhabitants of a spiritual nation forced to take up arms in defense of their ideals, and the saga of an initially childlike ruler who at first wore his monk's robes uncomfortably but was ultimately transformed by his escape into the towering figure the world knows today-a charismatic champion of free thinking and universal compassion.


    From the Hardcover edition.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateJan 18, 2011
    ISBN9780739383797
    Unavailable
    Escape from the Land of Snows: The Young Dalai Lama's Harrowing Flight to Freedom and the Making of a Spiritual Hero
    Author

    Stephan Talty

    Stephan Talty is the New York Times bestselling author of The Black Hand, The Good Assassin, Agent Garbo, and A Captain’s Duty. His books have been made into two films, the Oscar-winning Captain Phillips and Only the Brave. He’s written for publications including the New York Times Magazine, GQ, and Playboy. He lives outside New York City with his family.

    More audiobooks from Stephan Talty

    Related to Escape from the Land of Snows

    Related audiobooks

    Asian History For You

    View More
    View More

    Related podcast episodes

    Related articles

    • Article

      Test Of Faith

      Mar 18, 2019

      Test Of Faith
      12 min read

    • Article

      The Uncertain Path

      Nov 23, 2021

      The Uncertain Path
      42 min read

    • Article

      Hidden Tibetan Coinage

      Nov 1, 2021

      Hidden Tibetan Coinage
      7 min read

    • Article

      Tibet

      Jan 22, 2018

      Tibet
      1 min read

    • Article

      The Long March

      Dec 29, 2020

      The Long March
      3 min read

    • Article

      When in Romania…

      Oct 28, 2021

      Children of the Night: The Strange and Epic Story of Modern Romania Paul Kenyon (Head of Zeus, £25) Jessica Douglas-Home is an author and founder of the Mihai Eminescu Trust, which helps preserve the heritage of Saxon Transylvania ALTHOUGH ROMANIANS

      4 min read

    • Article

      Tamerlane Swoops In

      Sep 28, 2020

      THE THING ABOUT being in a “central” location is that everything else is “out there.” Europe, for instance, on the edge of the great central continent, is definitely “out there,” as is China. Even though the Chinese call China “Central Country,” deep

      8 min read

    • Article

      Running The Rule Over Ages Of Empire

      Nov 24, 2022

      NO HAGIOGRAPHY OF EMPIRE is offered by Dominic Lieven, but the level of wisdom offered about the vital human aspects of imperial rulership make this a quietly devastating rebuttal of some of the cruder anti-imperialist critiques of our superficially

      5 min read

    • Article

      Eat the Buddha

      Aug 20, 2020

      by Barbara Demick (Granta, ISBN 9781783785704) granta.com Ngaba was ‘a nothing little town that had just gotten its first set of traffic lights’ when it shot to fame as the world capital of self-immolations. To date, of the 156 Tibetans who have set

      1 min read

    • Article

      Creating Tibetan Currency

      Sep 27, 2021

      Creating Tibetan Currency
      5 min read

    • Article

      We Russians Will Have To Bear Our Guilt Until The Doomed Regime Collapses. For It Surely Will Collapse – The Attack On A Free Ukraine Is The Beginning Of The End Putin’s Crumbling Pyramid Of Power

      Mar 4, 2022

      We Russians Will Have To Bear Our Guilt Until The Doomed Regime Collapses. For It Surely Will Collapse – The Attack On A Free Ukraine Is The Beginning Of The End Putin’s Crumbling Pyramid Of Power
      8 min read

    • Article

      The Mamluk Regime

      Jan 27, 2020

      The Mamluk Regime
      8 min read

    • Article

      Welcome

      Aug 10, 2023

      Welcome
      1 min read

    • Article

      The Voices Of CHINA

      Oct 29, 2020

      The Voices Of CHINA
      6 min read

    • Article

      All True

      Aug 15, 2023

      All True
      3 min read

    • Article

      A Horde Of Many Nations

      Oct 29, 2020

      A Horde Of Many Nations
      3 min read

    • Article

      An Unlikely Alliance

      Dec 29, 2020

      A decade of relentless warfare waged by Chiang Kai-shek’s KMT had all but dashed the Communist Party’s hopes of seizing power. By 1935 the retreat from their mountain hideaway in the south ended and the communists, now firmly under Mao Tse-tung’s lea

      3 min read

    • Article

      Seeds Of Dragons

      Nov 1, 2020

      Seeds Of Dragons
      2 min read

    • Article

      Burma’s Concrete Jungle

      Sep 9, 2021

      Burma’s Concrete Jungle
      13 min read

    Reviews for Escape from the Land of Snows

    4/5

    10 ratings2 reviews

    What did you think?

    Tap to rate

    Review must be at least 10 words

    • 3/5
      I don't generally like books that have to have a cast of characters at the beginning of them, but this book was interesting and had excellent, simply writing that made it very easy-to-read and quick to read. Not my favorite book, but not bad either.
    • 5/5
      Before reading Escape from the Land of Snows, I had a vague, general understanding of Tibet and the Dalai Lama. I knew Tibet had been invaded by China, its territory is protected by the mountain ranges above Nepal (and Mt. Everest), and that it is a nation of Buddhists and pacifists. I'd seen various movies/books that depicted the selection of the Dalai Lama and about Tibet was aware that much poetic license had been taken - James Hilton's Shangri-La, Tintin in Tibet, Little Buddha, Seven Years in Tibet.Escape from the Land of Snows deftly combines a glimpse into the Dalai Lama's personal history with the historical and political events that have shaped Tibet. We learn how the Dalai Lama is selected; from the process of selection to the conditions that must be fulfilled - and this is explained in its sociocultural and political context. Stephen Talty makes the Dalai Lama come alive both as the political, religious and cultural figure that he is and on a personal level.Talty starts in 1935 with the passing of previous Dalai Lama and the search for his successor. I'd had all sorts of Hollywood misconceptions as to the method of finding the successor and found the detailed description fascinating. We learn the details of the Dalai Lama's life from the moment that he was "found"- in Amdo, an obscure village 1,000 miles (2 months' travel) from the capital Lhasa. I was fascinated by the specific ways in which the monks are able to identify and confirm the identity of the next Dalai Lama. We learn how the three year old boy was raised, tutored, and shaped to become Tibet's spiritual leader. Separated from his family with the exception of his younger brothers - one of whom was disciplined when the Dalai Lama misbehaved - the new Dalai Lama is raised in the traditional way by elderly monks.Talty recounts what it was like for the Dalai Lama as a lonely young boy raised by monks in the palace in Lhasa and revered by the Tibetan people. As I read about his acts of generosity and mercy, such as releasing the inmates from the nearby prison, it was clear that the Dalai Lama sees the world very differently. We learn how his trusting and generous nature - his celebration of the good in others - played out in the negotiations with Mao and the People's Republic of China. Mao's desire to reintegrate Tibet into China and the increasing ruthlessness of China's foreign policy resulted in heartbreaking attacks on Tibetan monks, citizens, and the Tibetan government.As Talty shares the harrowing details of those last days and of the Dalai Lama's escape from Lhasa during those turbulent days, we see the strength of the Dalai Lama's love for his country and his people and just how much he means to Tibet and the Tibetan people.Escape from the Land of Snows: The Young Dalai Lama's Harrowing Flight to Freedom and the Making of a Spiritual Hero is more than an engrossing read, it's a story that needs to be shared.ISBN-10: 9780307460950 - HardcoverPublisher: Crown; 1 edition (January 18, 2011), 320 pages.Review copy acquired through the Amazon Vine program.