This is the first book to present the stories and portraits of ordinary Tibetan women and men in exile, in their own words. It includes gorgeous photographs of the lands they embraced in Ladakh, where they fled after the Chinese annexed Tibet in 1959.
To meet the people and make these photographs, the Johnsons traveled throughout Ladakh, visiting many villages, and interviewing dozens of people. Most of them had to leave everything behind when they fled: family, friends, and their most precious possessions: their animals, with whom they had a unique and symbiotic relationship.
Yet, as Dr. Johnson reveals in his photographs and stories, these refugees are resilient, wise, and hopeful. They have made their tragedy a source of strength, along with their unwavering devotion to their spiritual leader, the Dalai Lama, and to their Buddhist practice, which continues to sustain them.
In a world full of exiles, more than 150,000 of which are Tibetan, this book is not only of historical significance, it is timely. It puts a human face on the increasingly complex problem of people being forcibly displaced from their homelands. These remarkable individuals show us the meaning of never giving up, and that everyone deserves compassion, for without it, the future of humanity stands in peril.
Author Biography:
Dr. Eugene H. Johnson has been Professor of Comparative Medicine at Sultan Qaboos University in Oman since 1999. Previously he worked as a National Institutes of Health Clinical Research Scientist at the Yale University Medical School. He has mentored numerous students, and research scientists from many parts of the world and authored over one hundred and fifty peer-reviewed scientific articles. A passionate photographer since 1974, he is the author of four books: A Photographic Pilgrimage, Something's Fishy, (Unspoken Dialogues, 2004), and a two-volume series commissioned by the late Sultan Qaboos bin Said of Oman, titled Reflections from the Not So Distant Past in Oman. His work has been featured in magazines including Black and White Photography, Food and Travel, and Lenswork, and in the book, Looking at Images, by Brooks Jensen, the longtime editor of Lenswork (Lenswork Publshing 2014). His work is held in numerous private and public collections including Al-Bustan Palace, Oman, Banco do Brasil, Brazil, Brazilian American Cultural Institute, Washington, D.C., the Museum of Art in Sao Paulo, Brazil, Nairobi National Museum, Kenya,, and the Royal Court of the Sultanate of Oman, and has been showcased in Brazil, Germany, India, Kenya, and Kazakhstan. The United States Embassy in the Sultanate of Oman hosted a thirty-year retrospective of his works that was co-sponsored by 17 international corporations. Mirasol Delfin Johnson was born in the Rizal province of the Philippines and pursued her education at Roosevelt College in Manila and AMA University, Quezon City, Philippines, where she studied commerce and computer science. In 1988, she relocated to Norway, which marked a significant turning point in her professional path. After initially working with bilingual and Filipino-Norwegian children at the Educational and Learning Development Center in Oslo, she became a representative for bilingual assistants from various countries as well as a legal interpreter and translator within both the judicial system and medical establishments. Her multifaceted cultural background has been invaluable in her role as the Associate Director of Unspoken Dialogues, a non-profit organization she co-founded with Eugene Johnson to promote narrative photographic imagery that conveys universal themes of humanity, and which donates the proceeds from the sale of prints and books to educational and child health development programs.
