SINOLeeds 2026: Ning Ken

Meet the voices behind the English edition of Tibetan Sky: author Ning Ken and translator Thomas Moran. For those interested in contemporary Chinese literature and translated voices, this event will be an insight into the world of literary translation. 

Wang Mojie’s dreams wilted in the Beijing heat.

Leaving behind its constricting avenues at the end of the millennium, the disillusioned academic seeks meaning in Lhasa. Instead, he finds Ukyi Lhamo.

The soul of every party, her studied Parisian charms hide an inner rootlessness. Raised by a mother who stifled her beliefs to protect all she held dear, she searches for her grandmother, the key to her lost heritage.

Crossing paths among a gathering of self-exiled intellectuals living among the cool mountains, the two bond on the sidelines of a fierce philosophical debate. However, as Wang Mojie’s masochistic fantasies resurface, can they cling to what they mutually lack? Or was it never possible to make peace with zero?

About the Author

Ning Ken was born in Beijing in 1959. His major works include The City of Masks, Tibetan Sky
and Three Trios. For many years, he was the executive deputy editor of the literary
magazine October, and he is now a professional writer at the Lao She Literary Institute. He
has been nominated for the Lao She Literary Award, the 2014 Asia Weekly Top Ten Novels
and the U.S. Newman Literary Award.

About the Translator

Thomas Moran received his PhD in East Asian Literature from Cornell University in 1994, and
since that year has been on the faculty of the Chinese Department at Middlebury College.
He has edited or co-edited and contributed to three volumes on Chinese writers for the
Dictionary of Literary Biography series and has published translations of Chinese short
stories, plays, poems and essays.

Praise for Tibetan Sky

"Sardonic and erudite, it’s the only major literary treatment of Sino-Tibetan relations to
appear in English in decades." - Andrew Rule, The Spectator

"At its heart …, this is a novel that contrasts alternative ways of being: the rigour of French
philosophy duels with ancient Tibetan spirituality" - Rónán Hession, The Irish Times

"Ning Ken is a most compelling storyteller from contemporary China. In Tibetan Sky, he
takes us to a land known for its stunning mountains and rivers, and unique cultures and
callings, as he ponders the limits of the mundane and the horizons beyond. The novel
captures the human condition with lyrical subtleties and modernist provocations, rendering
Tibet in a nuanced and dramatic light." - Professor David Der-wei Wang, Harvard University

"Reading Tibetan Sky is an extraordinary experience. This is a book that works on you,
remaking you as you read. Daring, surprising and quietly subversive, the story unfurls in a
way that feels organic, yet is masterfully wrought. Ning Ken captures moments and holds
them up to the light, turning them this way and that so that we appreciate every angle." -
Ann Morgan, author of Reading the World and Crossing Over