Ballad of the Himalayas

In this collection of short stories, Ma Yuan tells enigmatic tales about an eponymous narrators travels in Tibet that question the very meaning of story and our assumptions about meaning itself. Yang Xiaobins introduction explores Ma Yuans role as Chinas first postmodernist author. Ma Yuans stories and novellas develop metafiction in synergy with Tibetan Buddhisms notion of the cosmos as an illusion. Ma Yuan is of interest for his cloaked allusions to the tortured relationship between Chinese and Tibetans. Where government propaganda portrays the Chinese as the liberators of Tibet, Vagabond Soul depicts Chinese economic exploitation of Tibetansthe Chinese narrator bribes a Tibetan beggar to steal rare a rare old Tibetan coin mold for the narrator to mold counterfeits. A Fiction is a tongue-in-cheek allegory of the Chinese fascination with primitive Tibet: a Chinese narrators love affair with a nubile Tibetan leper.An aficionado both of western postmodernist fiction and of traditional Chinese Daoism, Ma Yuan portrays the disorienting interaction of traditional Tibetan life and Chinese modernization so as to render absurd the rational premises of what we usually call the modern world.