A Life Unforeseen

One of the only government officials in pre-Communist Tibet to have been educated in English recounts the pivotal events that changed his homeland, and the fate of his people, forever.

Rinchen Sadutshang was born in 1928 near the Tibet-China border to a well-off trading family, educated in a Jesuit school in the Himalayan foothills of British India, and served in the Dalai Lama’s government both before and after the 1959 Communist takeover of Lhasa. A refugee alongside tens of thousands of his countrymen, he played a crucial role in bringing the plight of the Tibetan people to the world’s attention.

In this memoir, published just months after his passing in July of 2015, the author recounts his long, fascinating career in service to the Tibetan cause. From meeting British viceroy Lord Waverly in India and General Chiang Kai-shek in China in 1946 to being part of the delegation that successfully pled Tibet’s case before the United Nations in the 1960s, he offers a first-hand perspective on a number of memorable historical events.