Forbidden Memory: Tibet during the Cultural Revolution

The Cultural Revolution hit Tibet like a typhoon in 1966. Red Guard cadres destroyed irreplaceable cultural artifacts, enforced political indoctrination, and destroyed temples and monasteries in an attempt to obliterate Tibetan Buddhism. Since then, Chinese authorities have wielded the politics of national unity and modern civilization to cover up the regime’s reign of terror, even as officials have admitted to “excesses” elsewhere. Tibetan writer-activist Tsering Woeser uses never-before-seen photographs of her father, Tsering Dorje, to tell the haunting story of those fateful months. Merging images with eyewitness accounts and expert analysis, Tsering Woeser reflects on Tibet’s ethnic character and traditions before detailing how the twin calamities of foreign invasion and cultural obliteration transformed a pastoral Buddhist state into a land of nightmares. At the same time, she adds her impassioned denunciation of the invasion to a chorus of other Tibetan voices against the decades-long silence surrounding Chinese atrocities. Heartbreaking and revelatory, Forbidden Memory provides a long-overdue reckoning of China’s role in Tibet’s tragic past.