Sky Burial: An Epic Love Story of Tibet (non-fiction) by Xinran Xue, 2006

Chinese journalist Xinran Xue, author of Good Women of China: Hidden Voices writes this epic love story, based on a true story. She travels 4 hours to meet Shu Wen, a woman who has crossed the border to China from Tibet. Through her interview with her, she tells the story of Shu Wen and Kejun, two young doctors married for less than a hundred days during the cultural revolution when Kejun joins the army and goes to battle in Tibet. Shu Wen learns of her husbands death but does not believe he has died and left her and so she starts on a twenty year journey to find him. She joins his regiment, searches twenty long years walking through Tibet, living with a Tibetan family, learning Tibetan lifestyle, culture and finally discovers the truth about her husband, and his death by sky burial. It is a very moving book, revealing, humanistic and reads very easily, like a novel. I enjoyed it, and would recommend as a good read on a very different view of Tibetan culture.