Bhuchung Sonam, the influential Tibetan writer and poet has been awarded the Ostana Prize. The annual Italian award, Writings in the Mother Tongue is awarded by the Chambra d’Òc to literary authors who use a “mother tongue”, a present-day minority language of territorial belonging, in their works. Phayul reports that his award makes particular note of his translation work which brings “focus to Tibetan language and literature”.
Bhuchung’s latest work, Under the Blue Skies is a Tibetan reader which celebrates sixty years of Tibetan literature in English. It includes 40 compositions in fiction, non fiction and poetry by 30 popular Tibetan writers – including His Holiness the Dalai Lama; it is published by Blackneck Books and TibetWrites, a group founded by Bhuchung and other Tibetan refugee writers and translators.
Bhuchung told Contact, “This award makes me realise that whatever little we do makes a difference, and that others do pay attention as we protect our language and promote our literature. The Tibetan language is our life-essence. Without it everything dies”.
Bhuchung, who is 50 and based in Dharamshala, travelled to Italy for the cultural event and prize award ceremony held by the Chambra d’Òc, a cultural association that works in the field of promotion and enhancement of the lesser used languages in the world. The organisation says, “The increasing awareness of the importance attributed to linguistic and cultural diversity in international strategies all over the world has led the small community of Ostana, a small municipality in the Alps, to try to make a contribution for the recovery and revival of its native language and to implement an occasion where the language can be practiced whereby the entire linguistic heritage can return to being the centre not only of the attention and of cultural research, but of the entire community’s life as well.”
Phayul quotes the Tibetan poet as saying he is “extremely honoured to be given this award, which [brings] recognition for Tibetan language and culture that are being eliminated in Tibet under China”. Phayul’s report continues, “Bhuchung noted that migration among other factors has made it difficult for Tibetans to preserve one’s own mother tongue, resulting in ‘losas of access to rich corpus of literature available in Tibetan language’.”
Born in Tibet, Bhuchung came to India and attended Tibetan Children’s Village (TCV) School in Dharamshala before studying for his Masters in Journalism at Emerson College in Boston, US. His many books include Songs from Dewachen (2022), Yak Horns: Notes on Contemporary Tibetan Writing, Music, Film and Politics (2013), and Burning the Sun’s Braids: New Poetry from Tibet (2017).
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