★Books.com.tw’s the Book of May 2021
★2020 Taipei Literature Award Annuity Scheme
★2021 Selected by Taiwan’s Ministry of Culture as a “Books from Taiwan”
★2021 Taiwan Literature Golden Book Award
★2021 Taiwan Literature Golden Book Award New Bud Award
★2022 Golden Tripod Awards Excellent Publications
★Book Trailer：徐振輔《馴羊記》不只是小說，也是西藏風土的懺情錄
https://reurl.cc/r1bxlr
★The author Chen-Fu Hsu won the 2022 500 Young Awards
★Rights sold: Greece, North Macedonia, Turkey and North America

The dialogue between pilgrims – a Taiwanese naturalist and a Japanese monk – who converge in Tibet narrates the story of the mountainous former kingdom throughout decades of revolution, redevelopment, and environmental turmoil.

The novel integrates Tibet's natural history, travel notes, and lyrical literature in describing the demise and dilemmas of Tibet's natural scenery and humanistic customs – a sorrowful elegy lamenting the passing of utopia.

In search of snow leopards, a traveler broke through countless obstacles to reach the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau and was allowed to conduct a 72-day snow leopard survey at the Conservation Research Station. Time passes, and he opens his travel log by accident only to find that his heart is still in Tibet – the decision to take a leave of absence from school, returning to the Plateau thrice – what is he looking for now?

In the 1950s, Udagawa Huihai entered Tibet illegally through India to understand the subtleties of Buddhism at a time when the Tibetan army and the People's Liberation Army engaged in guerrilla warfare. He eventually settles down in Lhasa, living together with Rinpoche, resulting in What’s A Snow Leopard to You?

Utilizing two different time and space plot lines, Chen-Fu Hsu supplements his tale with the Tibetan drama "Princess Wencheng," folding together important historical scenes from the seventh century, twentieth century, and contemporary Tibet. All events traverse beyond the limitations of time. In detail, one observes the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, where most people think the Buddha's light shines – we recognize that it has never been calm. After cultural transplantation in the Han Dynasty, the Cultural Revolution swept through, afforestation and grazing ceased, Tibetans not only lived like mayflies but their original nature and life had already gone through several calamities and drifted with the times.

From the perspective of contemporary travelers, we observe the biological phenomena of Tibet. Mirroring the natural balance of grassland ecology and the Tibetan natural history, from shale to pikas, snow leopards, vultures, etc., Hsu also describes sheep epidemics from environmental history and geography. Ecological issues such as mining pollution, prairie rat disaster, and agricultural and animal husbandry conflicts reflect Tibet's emotional identity and economic development battles.

Exquisite philosophies, metaphors, integrating ecology, geography, drama, architecture, travel notes, against a beautiful context – the book depicts the human landscape, herder culture, and the nature of Tibetan in a meticulous manner. In addition to showing the author's depth and displaying his rich experience in learning and training, we also witness his loving care for the land. In an elegiac form, What’s A Snow Leopard To You? allows readers to see how history repeats itself on this Plateau and the plight of its people.

Chen-Fu Hsu (徐振輔) Born in Taipei in 1994. He graduated from the Department of Georgrahy, National Taiwan University. He specializes in entomology and human geography, and has published several SCI Journal papers. His hobbies include photography, travel, and wildlife photography. His works have been selected four times in the Chiu Ko Publishing Annual Prose Selection and won several awards such as Taipei Literature Annuity, TSMC Young Student Literature Award, and Ministry of Education Literary Creation Award. While having no ambitions in photography, he dreams of shooting snow leopards, narwhals, birds of paradise, and other creatures that some believe are myths. Served as a Canon lecturer, he has held a solo exhibition of bird ecology photography titled "Wings over and over, and light covers light. What’s A Snow Leopard to You? is his debut that already won many literary awards in Taiwan.

About the Translator

Howard Goldblatt translates Chinese fiction from China and Taiwan, including Nobel Prize–winner Mo Yan, five of whose works are published by Arcade (The Garlic Ballads; The Republic of Wine; Big Breasts and Wide Hips; Life and Death Are Wearing Me Out; Shifu, You'll Do Anything for a Laugh). He has also translated works by Chiang-Sheng Kuo (The Piano Tuner) and Zhen-Yun Liu (I Did Not Kill My Husband; The Cook, the Crook, and the Real Estate Tycoon; Remembering 1942, all with Sylvia Li-Chun Lin and published by Arcade). He taught Chinese literature and culture for more than a quarter of a century. He lives in Lafayette, Colorado.

Sylvia Li-Chun Lin, a former teacher and scholar of modern and contemporary Chinese literature and culture, is a full-time translator and writer. She and Howard Goldblatt live in Lafayette, Colorado, with their demonic cat, Domino.

“Chen-Fu Hsu has delivered a very impressive book.” ── Ming-Yi Wu, Author of The Stolen Bicycle, longlisted for Man Booker International Prize, 2018

“The metafictional result of What’s a Snow Leopard to You?, an amalgam of autobiography, ecofiction, microfictional texts (stories) buried in a macrofictional narrative, religious (Buddhist) expression, and gripping personal encounters in a variety of narrative writing styles, is an engrossing novel of ideas and humanity that introduces a prize-winning young novelist to the English-speaking world.” ── Howard Goldblatt and Sylvia Li-Chun Lin, Translators