Jamyang Norbu is an influential [1][2] Tibetan political activist and writer, currently living in exile in the United States, having previously lived for over 40 years as a Tibetan exile in India.

In his youth he briefly joined the Tibetan Resistance in Mustang. Later he founded and directed the Amnye Machen Institute[3], Tibetan Centre for Advanced Studies, in Dharamsala.

His relentless opposition to Chinese rule in Tibet has led him to criticize the strategy of the Tibetan Government in Exile, which he regards as too conciliatory[4] [5]. His endeavours have also been derided by Chinese authorities as “the wings of a fly beating against a boulder”[6].

Norbu has written several books and theater pieces in English and in Tibetan. In 2000 he received the Hutch Crossword Book Award for his book The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes.[7][8][9]. The book was published in the U.S. in 2001, first under the title Sherlock Holmes – The Missing Years.

Books In English by Jamyang Norbu

• Warriors of Tibet: The Story of Aten and the Khampas’ Fight for the Freedom of Their Country (originally titled Horseman in the Snow), Wisdom, 1987, Wisdom Pub. , ISBN 0-861-71050-9.
• The Mandala of Sherlock Holmes, Bloomsbury USA, 2003, ISBN 1-582-34328-4.
• Illusion and reality, Tibetan Youth Congress, 1989.

External links

Shadow Tibet: Jamyang Norbu’s blog

References and notes

1. Tibet’s foremost political essayist and activist in exile”, according to Steven Venturino in Where Is Tibet in World Literature?, World Literature Today, January, 2004.
2. “the foremost Tibetan political essayist, playwright, and novelist”, according to Dorsh Marie de Voe’s Tibetans in India, Springer, 2005, ISBN 978-0-306-48321-9.
3. Amnye Machen site.
4. ‘Hands off’ isn’t enough for Tibet by Topden Tsering, July 24, 2005, San Francisco Chronicle.
5. Jamyang Norbu, Looking Back From Nangpa-La, January 27, 2007, at phayul.com.
6. WCTIT Bio
7. Tibetan Sherlock shakes up the movement by David Tracey, March 28, 2002, International Herald Tribune
8. Afterlife of Sherlock Holmes by Meenakshi Mukherjee, October 1, 2006, The Hindu.
9. Longing for the Himalayas by Tsering Namgyal, October 19, 2001, The Wall Street Journal online.