Defying China – Tsultrim Dolma

She stroked my head, fingers trembling. “You know,” she said out of the blue. “They used to make nuns and monks line up, facing each other, almost like a collective arranged marriage. We had to pretend to be lovers so we wouldn’t be punished.” I didn’t know what to say, wasn’t even sure if I was meant to hear it.

So, I kept my eyes closed, figuring she might just be speaking to herself. “My brother broke out of prison.” I blinked the sleep out of my eyes, hard. Great-Aunt Jampa’s brother… so that was one of Father’s uncles, then. I didn’t know much about him, but prison? Surely, I’d misheard. “I don’t know what he was doing there in the first place, but he escaped,” she continued.

“And then he came to me. “When I opened the door, I could barely recognize him after all those years. He’d become so skinny, and his clothes were in tatters. He kept glancing over his shoulder, sunken eyes darting everywhere, as if he was expecting his pursuers to leap out of the shadows. He said he had to kill some guards to escape. It scared me. He scared me. I couldn’t be caught aiding a fugitive.

Even just talking with him would cast suspicion on me, especially because we were family. “I wanted to help him. I wanted to bring him inside and give him food and water. But when he asked, I said no.” She paused as if she’d slipped into a trance. I thought she’d fallen asleep, when she continued quietly. “He was my own brother, and I said no. Instead, I gave him some tobacco and made him leave. Later on, I saw a plume of smoke in the mountains, and I knew.

I knew that had to be him. “The Chinese came for me the next day. They said, ‘You have to find your brother, or else we will kill you too.’ So what was I to do? I went into the mountains where I’d last seen that smoke. And I ran and ran and ran, trying to find him, almost like I was hunting him.

I didn’t know whether or not I wanted to find him at all. “They found me collapsed by a river, on the brink of death. They brought me back and let me be. I suppose that meant that they got him.” The pain in her voice was almost tangible, scraping past her throat until it dropped between us with a heavy thud. I willed my heart to slow down, taking deep breaths and focusing on the rough-spun cotton under my cheek.

The authorities had come for her, even though she hadn’t been involved in any suspicious activities herself. She’d sent her own brother away, but they still arrived at her door, threatening to kill her too.

Title page and cover art copyright © 2026 by Dana Ledl Text copyright © 2026 by Tsultrim Dolma and Rebecca Wei Hsieh Penguin Random House values and supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission.

You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin Random House to continue to publish books for every reader. Please note that no part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner for the purpose of training artificial intelligence technologies or systems. Dial & colophon are registered trademarks of Penguin Random House LLC. Cover design by Theresa Evangelista This book was edited by Rosie Ahmed and Michelle Lee, copyedited by Regina Castillo and Aaron Burkholder, proofread by Kenny Young, designed by Maya Tatsukawa, and adapted for ebook by Michelle Quintero.

The production was supervised by Jayne Ziemba, Nicole Kiser, and Vanessa Robles. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available. First published in the United States of America by Dial Books, 2026 ISBN 9780593615959 Ebook ISBN 9780593615966 The authorized representative in the EU for product safety and compliance is Penguin Random House Ireland, Morrison Chambers, 32 Nassau Street, Dublin D02 YH68, Ireland, https://eu- contact.penguin.ie.

prhid_prh_7.4a_155320331_c0_r0 OceanofPDF.com CONTENTS Dedication Content Warning Chapter One Chapter Two Chapter Three Chapter Four Chapter Five Chapter Six Chapter Seven Chapter Eight Chapter Nine Chapter Ten Chapter Eleven Chapter Twelve Chapter Thirteen Chapter Fourteen Chapter Fifteen Chapter Sixteen Chapter Seventeen Chapter Eighteen Chapter Nineteen Chapter Twenty Chapter Twenty-One Chapter Twenty-Two Chapter Twenty-Three Chapter Twenty-Four Chapter Twenty-Five Chapter Twenty-Six Chapter Twenty-Seven Chapter Twenty-Eight Chapter Twenty-Nine Chapter Thirty Chapter Thirty-One Chapter Thirty-Two Chapter Thirty-Three Chapter Thirty-Four Chapter Thirty-Five Chapter Thirty-Six Chapter Thirty-Seven Chapter Thirty-Eight Authors’ Note Acknowledgments About the Authors OceanofPDF.com To my friends and family, whose real identities I can’t share in order to ensure their safety.

I hope to sing your names from the mountaintops of Tibet one day. OceanofPDF.com Defying China is the true story of Tsultrim’s journey as a Tibetan activist. However, Tibet remains a sensitive topic, so we have changed all names and tweaked some minor details to protect everyone involved in Tsultrim’s story. This memoir also includes mentions of physical, emotional, and sexual violence. We hope you prioritize taking care of yourself, even if it means putting down the book. Please be patient and kind to yourself, and know that you are not alone.

This is a short excerpt from the opening of “” by Unknown, quoted for review and introduction purposes. All rights belong to the copyright holders.

Book Information

• Unique ID: 8f44edbf01b1bddb
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• Title: –
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• ISBN: 9780593615959, 9780593615966
• Pages: 294
• Language: English (en)

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• Estimated Reading Time: 399.31 minutes
• Total Words: 79,862
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• Average Words per Page: 271.64
• Average Characters per Page: 1495.23

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