Wednesday 8th July at 7 pm

A talk by Alexander Norman, introducing the film 'TIBET: Cry of the Snow Lion'

Alexander Norman has known the Dalai Lama since 1988.  His profile of the Tibetan leader published that year in The Spectator was one of the first to bring the Dalai Lama to the attention of the general public.  On the strength of this and of his articles on Tibet in The Financial Times, he was commissioned to write the Dalai Lama’s autobiography, FREEDOM IN EXILE.  Since publication in 1990, the book has been translated into 33 languages and sold more than a million copies.  Subsequently, he wrote the Dalai Lama’s best-selling manifesto, ETHICS FOR THE NEW MILLENNIUM (1999), which to date has sold over three hundred thousand copies in the US alone, half of them in hardback, and has been translated into a total of 34 languages.

During the course of his work on these books, Alexander Norman has become intimate with the Dalai Lama’s private entourage and he continues to enjoy a privileged relationship with the Dalai Lama himself.  Excepting only Sir Charles Bell during the life of the Great 13^th Dalai Lama (1876-1933), it is doubtful whether any westerner has spent more time one on one with the Tibetan leader. In 2001, he was appointed a member of the Dalai Lama’s Special Review Committee.

Besides spending much time in discussion with His Holiness, Alexander Norman has studied Buddhist philosophy with some of the most renowned interpreters of Buddhism in the West.  He has also worked with Tibetan academics and, in addition, was invited recently to collaborate on a project with Dr Charles Ramble, head of the Department of Tibetan and Himalayan Studies at Oxford University.  He is not a Buddhist, however, and as a result remains free to take an independent line on controversial issues.