Welcome to Aspects of History, Xiao Hei. A Tibetan Girl Called Ata is your first novel to appear in English, after several tragic romance novels published in Chinese. What was it that made you want to bring this particular story, and this particular side of modern Chinese history, to English-speaking readers; and what do you hope they take away from it that they might not get from the news headlines or history books?

A Tibetan Girl Called Ata is my first novel to be published in English, and I believe it is the work best suited to introduce to English-language readers because it tells a story that is both deeply personal and historically significant.

The novel is inspired by real events and by people I met in the aftermath of the 2008 riots in Lhasa. Although it is, at its heart, a love story, it is also an exploration of how political conflict and historical grievances shape the lives of ordinary people. I wanted to bring this story to English-language readers because I believe fiction can illuminate dimensions of modern Chinese history that are difficult to convey through factual accounts alone.

English-language media has understandably covered Tibet primarily through the lenses of politics, human rights, and international relations. These are all important issues, but they can sometimes overshadow the human stories behind them. Statistics, official statements, and newspaper headlines rarely convey what it feels like to live through such events, or how political divisions affect friendships, families, and every aspect of people’s lives.

I hope A Tibetan Girl Called Ata helps readers understand, even if only for a moment, the human cost of political division, and the struggle and resilience of those caught in its wake – something that news headlines and history books cannot always fully capture.

The novel is set during the 2008 unrest in Lhasa, an event that most English-speaking readers will have little or no knowledge of, since it barely features in school history lessons here. Why was this the moment in history you wanted to build the book around, and how important do you think it is for readers outside China to understand what happened during that period?

The 2008 Lhasa riots marked a pivotal moment in the history of modern Tibet. Their impact rippled far beyond the region, reverberating across China and sending shockwaves through my hometown of Chengdu, a metropolis of more than ten million people. Returning there after the riots, I witnessed events and heard stories that left a lasting impression on me.

What moved me most was not the riots themselves, but the way this sudden upheaval transformed the lives of ordinary people – particularly Tibetans – in Chengdu, a city nearly a thousand miles away.

There were countless stories, and from them my novel gradually took shape. It is fair to say that, without the Lhasa riots, A Tibetan Girl Called Ata would never have been written. It was against this historical backdrop that the story found its emotional depth.

I believe it is important for readers outside China to understand this chapter of history, not because they need to adopt a particular political viewpoint, but because it reveals something universal. Around the world, we continue to see societies divided by history, ethnicity, religion, and politics. The events of 2008 remind us that when such divisions erupt into conflict, it is ordinary people who pay the highest price. They also remind us that unresolved historical grievances rarely disappear. Even if tensions subside for a time, they can resurface with even greater intensity.

Can you tell us a bit about where the idea for the book first came from? Was there a particular story, person, or moment that sparked it?

This novel was born from a true story. My hometown, Chengdu, lies on the edge of the Tibetan Plateau and is home to a vibrant Tibetan community numbering in the hundreds of thousands. Sometimes I wonder: had I not grown up in Chengdu, would this story ever have found me?

There, I came to know a young Tibetan woman who had adapted well to city life and was engaged to a Han Chinese man. Then the Lhasa riots erupted in March 2008, and her life changed overnight.

When I returned to Chengdu that September, she told me she had ended her engagement. In the aftermath of the riots, the atmosphere in the city had become tense. Some of her friends had been arrested after police discovered photographs of the Dalai Lama on their mobile phones during routine identity checks. She, too, had been questioned. Frightened by the situation, her fiancé found an excuse to leave her.

Her experience was the spark I had been searching for. It was as though a light had been switched on in my mind. From that moment on, ideas flowed almost irresistibly, and before long they took shape as A Tibetan Girl Called Ata.

Han Ge is such a specific character; comfortable, a little detached from the world, and then completely undone by meeting Ata. How did his personality take shape for you as you were writing him?

Han Ge is the novel’s male protagonist, a man who appears easygoing on the surface but possesses an extraordinary stubbornness beneath it. Those two qualities may seem contradictory, but I have met many people like that in real life. They are relaxed about daily matters, yet once they have made an emotional commitment, they never let go. I wanted Han Ge to be that kind of person.

Before meeting Ata, Han Ge has already experienced the collapse of a marriage that once meant everything to him. The betrayal leaves him deeply disillusioned. He convinces himself that love is an illusion and that relationships are merely a matter of mutual need rather than genuine affection. Outwardly, he becomes detached from the world, but emotionally he has never stopped longing for the kind of love he once believed in.

That is why meeting Ata changes him so completely. She does not transform him into someone new; instead, she awakens the person he used to be before disappointment hardened him. Once he falls in love again, his old capacity for complete devotion returns almost instinctively.

Ata is based, at least in part, on a real woman’s story. Do you feel you’ve done justice to her in how you’ve portrayed her on the page, and was there anything about her you found difficult to translate into fiction?

While the novel was inspired by the true story of a young Tibetan woman, it is ultimately a work of fiction. The real-life events were quite straightforward, whereas the novel develops them into a considerably more complex narrative with a large cast of characters. Ata is therefore a character entirely distinct from the young Tibetan woman, both in her experiences and in her personality.

For that reason, I never felt constrained by the need to remain faithful to the real woman’s life, nor did I find any particular aspect of adapting her story especially difficult.

Your sister, Jung Chang, wrote Wild Swans, and you’ve spoken about translating her work into Chinese yourself. How much did that experience, of carrying her family’s story between languages, shape the way you approached writing your own novel?

Translating Wild Swans and writing fiction are two very different creative experiences. Translating requires complete fidelity to another writer’s voice and intentions, whereas writing a novel demands the freedom to create my own characters, narrative, and emotional world. For that reason, I don’t think translating Wild Swans had any direct influence on the way I approached writing A Tibetan Girl Called Ata.

The book was banned in China, and you’ve said it’s caused you real difficulties, including being pressured to cut ties with overseas Chinese communities. Did you know, while you were writing it, that it would provoke that kind of reaction; and did that possibility change anything about how you told the story?

It was inevitable that this book would be banned in China. I fully expected that writing this novel would bring real danger, and I gave no thought to any other difficulties. I was well aware that if I returned to China after its publication, I might “vanish into thin air.”

As for the suggestion that I was pressured to cut ties with overseas Chinese communities, the situation was slightly different. At one gathering, a Chinese consular official publicly called on Chinese community groups to sever their connections with me. In the end, almost no one responded to that appeal.

None of this, however, affected how I told the story. I never altered a single line out of fear, and I have no intention of doing so in the future.

Love between a Han Chinese man and a Tibetan woman is never treated as a simple thing in this book. It’s political the moment it exists. Was it always your intention to use a love story to explore that wider tension, or did the politics grow out of the romance as you wrote it?

Love is one of the most enduring themes in literature because it can illuminate not only human nature but also society and the times in which people live. From the moment I conceived this novel, I intended to use the love story between a Han Chinese man and a Tibetan woman to explore the wider historical, political, cultural, and ethnic tensions that shape their lives. The romance and the politics were never separate elements; they were intertwined from the very beginning.

Now that the English translation is out in the world, is there anything you’d like readers unfamiliar with Tibet, or with this period of Chinese history, to sit with after they finish the book?

I hope the novel leaves readers with a deeper appreciation of the complexity of Tibet and of the ordinary lives shaped by this difficult period of history. Behind every political conflict are individuals who love, suffer, make impossible choices, and cling to hope. I also hope the story encourages readers to look beyond political labels and historical divisions to recognise the shared humanity that connects us all. While the novel examines the devastating consequences of conflict, it is ultimately a story of love, courage, sacrifice, and hope. Sadness need not lead to despair – even in the darkest moments, the human spirit endures.

We live in a world increasingly marked by conflict and division. If this book, however modest its reach, can help foster even a little more empathy, understanding, and compassion, then it will have achieved something worthwhile. Even if it is no more than a single falling leaf, I hope the sound it makes when it reaches the ground will be loud enough for someone to hear.