What has made remote, mountainous Tibet and its only real celebrity, the Dalai Lama, so abidingly fascinating to the West? In "Virtual Tibet", one of the preeminent experts on the region has some answers as he undertakes a strange and wondrous odyssey into our Tibetan fantasies

"A uniquely experienced observer of China now gives us a novel that recounts the familiar but still mesmerizing events from the rise of Mao to the Tiananmen Square uprising, and the impact of that history on one father and son. At the center: Li Tongshu, one of the few Chinese citizens ever to graduate from the San Francisco Conservatory of Music. He is married to Vivian Knight, a Chinese American violinist. Tongshu is drawn by Mao's promise "to build...

Explores the life of the 14th Dalai Lama, including his years in exile and the continuing efforts to free Tibet. Features interviews with Chinese scholars, Tibet activists, and His Holiness himself.