Kathmandu, June 8 -- In the introduction to Old Demons New Deities, the first English-language anthology of short stories by Tibetan writers, the book's editor, Tenzin Dickie, writes about how Tibetans, both living in exile and in Tibet, have grown up as "literary orphans," a term she borrows from American-Haitian writer Edwidge Danticat.

"As a function of growing up in Tibet-in-India, a young society, we were cut off from our historical past, from our historical literature and culture," Dickie writes. "Of course, for Tibetans growing up on the other side of the mountains, this break from history was imposed by the Chinese state. This separation from our literacy past was compounded by the fact that modern Tibetan literature was still in...