Excerpt from Sky Burial by Xue Xinran, plus links to reviews, author biography & more

He had been so strong, so talkative, so full of life when he set out for Tibet. An army doctor wouldn't have been directly involved in the fighting. What "incident" was this? How did he die? Why could nobody give her any information? They had not even added a few words to testify that he died a revolutionary martyr as they always did for soldiers who fell in battle. Why not?

In the flood of buoyant "Reports of Victory from the People's Liberation Army on Entering Tibet," there had been no mention of an incident in which Kejun could have died. Staff at the military office responsible for comforting the widows and orphans of fallen soldiers had told Wen privately that they hadn't received any of the standard battlefield bulletins from Tibet.

Wen stood in the Suzhou street, unheeding of the rain. The busy life of the town continued around her, but she noticed nothing. An hour passed, then another. She was soaked in sorrow and bewilderment.

The chiming bells of Cold Mountain Temple called her back from her grief. Returning to the hospital where she worked, truly alone for the first time, a thought flashed through her mind. What if Kejun had simply been separated from his unit, like all those soldiers who were mistakenly reported dead when they were actually on their way home? Perhaps he was in danger or had fallen ill. She couldn't leave him in Tibet, alone.


The idea, conceived in that chill rain, that she should go and find Kejun proved to be so powerful that, despite all the attempts of her family, friends, and colleagues to talk her out of it, Wen was determined to join her husband's regiment and travel to Tibet. She rushed around every government office she could find, tearfully thrusting her marriage certificate, Kejun's parting note, even his few personal possessions--his towel, handkerchief, and tea mug--at everyone she saw. "My husband must be alive," she insisted. "He wouldn't abandon his new wife and the future mother of his children."

Excerpted from Sky Burial by Xinran Copyright © 2005 by Xinran. Excerpted by permission of Nan A. Talese, a division of Random House, Inc. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.