Tibetan Venture

"Tibet Venture" is the story of the second Tibet expedition by two Frenchmen, Andre Guibaut and Louis Liotard, in the early 1940s. Their goal was to map/survey an area of Tibet inhabited by Ngolo-Seta tribes, who are wont to engage in banditry and other lawless acts. Unfortunately, Liotard loses his life on this trip - he is shot by Tibetan brigands who apparently believe that the Frenchmen with their strange-looking equipment are sorcerers engaged in black magic. Although another companion is also killed, the rest barely escape with their lives. Guibaut's account relates, in a clear and engaging style, the incidents of their travels through known and uncharted Tibet, leading up to the death of his friend, and his own harrowing escape from annihilation. His narrative brims with descriptions of the places he encounters and acute observations of Tibetans, Chinese and Frenchmen he meets along the way, as well as of his own psychological states on this unpredictable journey. Occasionally, he is not free from the usual European prejudices of his time regarding Asian peoples, but mostly he comes through as understanding and empathic. (Eventually, he will be a long-term resident in China.) Remarkably, his book on the second expedition was completed and published before the one on the first. "Tibet Venture" was also written as a tribute to Louis Liotard, who met an untimely end on that lonely mountain pass, and whom Guibaut regarded as a true martyr to Science. Series: Oxford in Asia Paperbacks Paperback: 236 pages Publisher: Oxford University Press; Reprint edition (April 7, 1988) Language: English ISBN-10: 0195842146 ISBN-13: 978-0195842142