Writer's tale of salvation captures Tibetan spirit
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In a strange dream, Nyandrak saw his deceased wife suffering endlessly in hell for her past sins, unable to be reincarnated.
When Nyandrak woke up, he bought a lamb that was about to be butchered and perceived it to be his dead wife.
Every day, Nyandrak took the lamb to prayer rites at major monasteries in Lhasa, capital of southwest China's Tibet Autonomous Region, and offered as much money as he could afford to rescue his wife from eternal torture.
As his devout exercises continued, the woman he saw in his dreams suffered less, and her face was no longer recognizable - a sign of her reincarnation.
Nyandrak, however, soon fell ill and was diagnosed with cancer. Instead of being confined to a hospital ward, he chose to continue his routine observances with the lamb.
Tsering Norbu's novel, "The Redeemed Lamb," is a story about prayer and salvation, and a vivid description of an average Tibetan's spiritual world, according to a report by the evaluation committee of the fifth Lu Xun Literature Award, one of China's highest literary prizes.
The novel was published in 2009 and soon became a bestseller.
Last year, Norbu became the first Tibetan author to win the award, created in 1986 to honor renowned Chinese writer and critic Lu Xun.
Born in 1965, Norbu majored in Tibetan language at Tibet University in Lhasa. He was a reporter at the official Tibet Daily newspaper and later worked for a Tibetan literature magazine.
In an interview with Xinhua news agency last week, Norbu attributed his award to the unique Tibetan culture and religion that had been an inseparable part of his young life. "I was brought up in a world of devout Buddhists, where prayers, long prostrations and redemptions were daily occurrences," he said.
Such an experience enables Tibetan authors to better convey the "Tibetan spirit" to their readers, he said.
"Readers may have their own interpretations of the redeemed lamb, as a symbol of kindness and mercy, or of man and nature in harmony," he said.
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