Book Reviews

Peter Aufschnaiter’s Eight Years in Tibet

Martin Brauen

2002 208 pp., 70 b & w plates, 67 color plates, 9 maps. 24.5 x 17.5 cm. Hardbound.

ISBN-10: 974-524-012-5 $50.00
ISBN-13: 978-974-524-012-4

Peter Aufschnaiter’s Eight Years in Tibet

Book review by Annemarie Spahr

(Bulletin of the Swiss-Nepalese Society, No. 80, April 2003)

Finally Peter Aufschnaiter’s experiences of “Eight Years in Tibet” have come out in English, compiled and edited by Martin Brauen. The printing has been done by the Orchid Press Bangkok in their series of Asian Portraits “Life in Asia”. Besides the most interesting text on Peter Aufschnaiter’s life in Tibet, his notes on many experiences, personal letters etc. The book contains a great number of black and white photographs as well as colour photos, maps, diagrams and sketches, a glossary of Tibetan terms, lists of prices and wages in Tibet between 1947 and 1950. A map of Lhasa is enclosed. The book is also a good historical and at the same time modern account of life in Tibet. It is very well edited and beautifully printed. This book is a must for everybody interested in Tibet and it’s impact on a European. Orchid Press deserves great thanks for presenting this new edition to their series of Asian Portraits. It is hoped that more details on Peter Aufschnaiter’s life and work in Tibet will be edited in future as O. Kompatscher is actually trying to decipher the very special shorthand of Aufschnaiter’s diary.

[Read a review from The South China Morning Post] [More Orchid Press Reviews]