Book cover for Ocean, as Much as Rain: Stories, Lyrical Prose, and Poems from Tibet by Tsering Woeser

Ocean, as Much as Rain

Stories, Lyrical Prose, and Poems from Tibet

2026 Released
210 Pages
3-4 Hours
Ebook Unavailable
Audiobook Unavailable
Duke University PressISBN 9781478033110
Translated by Fiona Sze-Lorrain, Dechen Pemba

Ocean, as Much as Rain presents for the first time in the English-language world a collection of masterfully translated literary writings by prominent Tibetan writer Tsering Woeser. In these stories, lyrical essays, and poetry, Woeser interweaves texts, photographs, silences, and documentary details. Featuring a distinctively imaginative use of satire and digressive rhetoric, Woeser's stories bring to life Tibetan characters whose lives are entwined with politics, history, and religion. Woeser illuminates the ruins and places that she has come across during her various sojourns in Chinese-ruled Tibet, reviving sites from the past of her parents and their generation. These writings range from ingenious retellings of cultural encounters and confrontation to insightful commentaries on ecological issues and tourism in Tibet that never shun contradictions, dilemmas, or questions about the future. With an introduction by Fiona Sze-Lorrain and an author interview by editors-translators Sze-Lorrain and Dechen Pemba, Ocean, as Much as Rain is a landmark publication that celebrates the work of a steadfast dissident and a leading Tibetan literary figure of our times.

Tsering Woeser

Tsering Woeser is a poet, essayist and blogger, and one of the Tibetan movement's most prominent voices. In 2011 she was awarded the Prince Claus Prize and the International Women of Courage Award by the US Department of State. She lives under close surveillance in Beijing.

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Fiona Sze-Lorrain

Translated by

Fiona Sze-Lorrain's recent poetry collection is The Ruined Elegance (Princeton, 2016). Also a zheng harpist and translator, she has been a Abigail R. Cohen Fellow at the Columbia Institute for Ideas and Imagination in Paris.

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