Alai (Chinese: 阿来; pinyin: Ālái; Tibetan: ཨ་ལེ་, Wylie: a-le, ZYPY: Alê, Lhasa dialect: [ɑ́lè]; born 1959 in Sichuan Province) is a Chinese-language poet and novelist of Rgyalrong Tibetan descent.

[1] Alai's notable novel Red Poppies, published in 1998, follows a family of Tibetan chieftains, the Maichi, during the decade or so before the “liberation” of Tibet by the People's Liberation Army in 1951.

Their feudal life in the Tibetan borderlands, narrated by the youngest "idiot" son, is described as cruel, romantic, and full of intrigue (with the Annexation of Tibet by the People's Republic of China presented as a great advance for the Tibetan peasantry).

[1] In 2013, Alai participated in the International Writing Program's Fall Residency at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, IA.

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