By Tibetan author Alai

"Red Poppies focuses on the extravagant and brutal reign of a clan of Tibetan warlords during the rise of Chinese Communism. The story is wryly narrated by the son of the chieftain, a self-professed "idiot" .... When the chieftain agrees to grow opium poppies with seeds supplied by the Chinese Nationalists in exchange for modern weapons, he draws Tibet into the opium trade and unwittingly sows the seeds of his — and Tibet's — downfall."