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Sky Burial, Xinran
Chatto & Windus
Reviewed by James O'Sullivan (Courtesy of Taranaki Daily News)

When Xinran was a young girl she heard of a brutality committed by the Tibetans on a Chinese soldier. They cut him into a thousand pieces and fed him to the vultures. This story stuck with Xinran through her adult life and it was only when she met an old, mysterious woman that the truth behind the tale was revealed.

The old woman, Shu Wen, grew up in metropolitan China. She married a man called Wang Kajun but he was almost immediately called to serve in the Chinese army in Tibet. Not long after his departure, Shu Wen received notification of his death. Wanting to find out more, she left her family in search of the truth in Tibet.

The search was to be a long one. The group of Chinese soldiers Shu Wen was travelling with were attacked by hostile locals and she became separated from them. She was rescued by a family of Tibetan nomads and travelled with them for more than 10 years, learning their culture, language and spirituality. Eventually she met someone who knew of her husband's demise. The fate of Wang Kajun was coincidentally connected to the vulture tale Xinran heard as a young girl.

Xinran is a journalist and writes with a clinical, journalistic eye for detail. At times her attention to the ways of Tibetan life can inhibit the progression of the story. It's good if you want to know how Tibetans live, not so good if you just want to find out what happens in the story.

Although this is a true story it does have an air of familiarity about it. Here we have someone from an imperial power travelling to an invaded country and falling into the hands of the locals, then assimilating to their culture. I'm sure I've seen that one somewhere before.