Xinran: Sky Burial

Reviewed by SUSAN JACOBS

Few readers would have remained unmoved by Xinran's first book, the international best-seller The Good Women of China. Drawing on the heart-wrenching stories of listeners who called in to her nightly confessional radio show Words on the Night Breeze, it shattered the silence surrounding many Chinese women's lives in a society not given to frank self-revelation.

In Sky Burial Xinran explores another little-known world, that of Tibet. She recreates an astounding story as told to her by Shu Wen, a paediatrician who spent 30 years in Tibet, where she had initially gone to search for her missing husband, a doctor in the Chinese Liberation Army. She saves the life of Zhouma, a Chinese-speaking Tibetan noblewoman also separated from the man she loves, and both join forces to find their men.

Rescued by a nomad family during a storm, they are invited to roam the stark, rugged landscape with them. After bandits kidnap Zhouma, Wen adapts as best as she can to the family's subsistence lifestyle. Among her discoveries in this deeply traditional, religious society are that a woman can have several husbands and men are responsible for sewing because of the physical strength needed to wield the thick, rope-like thread.

She masters the art of milking yaks and making dung cakes, and lives in accordance with the seasons and Buddhist spiritual practices. A stoic acceptance of her life characterises the long-suffering Wen, whose Tibetan appearance and mannerisms make her an outsider when she eventually returns to Beijing.

Written in the simple, transparent style of its predecessor, the narrative has an unobtrusive, timeless, fable-like quality. Above all, it is a quest and a love story that effortlessly draw you into a world of ancient traditions, the most significant (and shocking) being the sky burial of the title.

Although several perspectives are offered on the political differences between the Chinese and Tibetans, there is little that adds understanding because the gentle, conciliatory tone leaves no space for sharp questioning. The narrative tiptoes round the gritty issues surrounding the conflict and I felt much had been left out or smoothed over.

Xinran presides over this haunting tale of loss and survival, of courage and fate with her customary skill and compassion. But at the end I felt vaguely dissatisfied. Instead of gaining new insights, I found that Tibet, and Wen for that matter, remained as fathomless and remote as ever.

* Susan Jacobs is the author of Fighting With the Enemy: New Zealand POWs and the Italian Resistance