Harry Potter Returns to Tibet!

Back in October 2008, we here at High Peaks Pure Earth wrote a blogpost about the first Harry Potter book, "Harry Potter And The Philosopher's Stone" that had been translated into Tibetan (via Chinese) by Norkyil Buchung Gyal (ནོར་དཀྱིལ་བུཆུངརྒྱལ་ Nor dkyil Bu chung rgyal).

It's been over two years since we wrote that blogpost but we have constantly received emails enquiring after the book and how to get hold of it outside of Tibet and China. It has also remained a popular blogpost of ours, despite not being that new.

Harry Potter Goes to Tibet

Last week Forbes magazine announced that J.K Rowling, the author of Harry Potter, a story about a boy Wizard is the highest earning author and number one celebrity author in the world. Did we Tibetans contribute anything to this? It seems that the Tibetans will be making a modest contribution to her monthly income of three million dollars.

I always look forward to the arrival of a neatly packed box of books from Tibet; this has been rudely interrupted since March. Last week, to my surprise, the supply resumed and I excitedly opened the box. On the top of the pile of books was a Tibetan translation of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone, (published in the United States as Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone). Actually, don’t you think this is a bit of an insult to the Yanks? The publisher may have assumed the word “philosopher” could confuse American readers. Anyway, the Tibetan translation retains the original title. The photo above is the Tibetan cover of the book.

At quick glance it is clear the book has not been translated from English but from Chinese. This often happens these days. The rendering title sounds like “Haru’s Potter” in Tibetan. The translator Norkyil Buchung Gyal (ནོར་དཀྱིལ་བུཆུངརྒྱལ་) in his preface writes that the chief motive for translating is to provide Tibetan language reading materials for junior middle school age groups. Certainly, there is a total lack of reading materials in Tibetans for young people. I for one welcome the publication.

Hopefully, there are many more to come!