Tintin in Tibet in Tibetan language: the story behind a rare collector's piece
Some time ago we shared a few photos on Instagram of a rather special comic album we'd come across: ཅིན་ཅིན་བོད་ལ་ཕྱིན་པ། – Hergé's "Tintin in Tibet," in Tibetan script. We didn't want to part with this rare piece before we'd learned more about the story behind it.
Hergé's most personal work
"Tintin in Tibet" (original title: Tintin au Tibet) first appeared as a serial in 1958–1959, then as an album in 1960. It is the 20th volume in the series – and for many the finest. Hergé himself called it his favourite.
And there's a reason for that, one that goes beyond mere adventure. Hergé created the story in the midst of a deep personal crisis: his first marriage was falling apart, and he was haunted by recurring nightmares in which vast, empty expanses of white pursued him again and again. A psychoanalyst advised him to set aside his work on Tintin. Hergé did the exact opposite – he poured his inner images into a new story. Out of the dreamed white came the endless snowscape of the Himalayas.
"Tintin in Tibet" became the only adventure without a villain. It is a tale of friendship: Tintin refuses to believe that his friend Chang has perished in a plane crash high in the Himalayas, and sets out to find him against all reason – with Snowy, Captain Haddock and the Sherpa Tharkey.
The friend who really existed
What many don't know: Chang was not an invented character. Behind him stands the Chinese artist and sculptor Zhang Chongren, whom Hergé had met in 1934 as a young man in Brussels. They were both 27 at the time, both artists, and they quickly became close friends. Zhang introduced Hergé to Chinese culture, history and drawing techniques – an influence that would prove formative for his unique, pared-down graphic style.
Then came the war, and the two men lost touch – for more than four decades. Hergé never forgot his friend, and ultimately paid tribute to him in his most important album – by sending Tintin out in search of him.
Life finally wrote a deeply moving epilogue: in 1981, Zhang was tracked down in China and invited to Europe. On 18 March 1981, the two men embraced once more at Brussels airport – after 47 years apart, in tears, before a crowd of journalists.
The best-selling book about Tibet
"Tintin in Tibet" has been translated into more than thirty languages. The Tibetologist Donald Lopez once called it the best-selling book about Tibet of all time. For countless people in the West, Hergé's album was their very first encounter with the landscapes, monasteries and spiritual world of Tibet.
The «Light of Truth Award»
That this story is far more than a children's book was confirmed at the highest level in 2006: in Brussels, the International Campaign for Tibet presented the Hergé Foundation with the Light of Truth Award – in the presence of, and with recognition from, the Dalai Lama. The award honours those who help raise the world's awareness of the Tibetan cause.
A small footnote to the story shows just how political this seemingly quiet book can be: when "Tintin in Tibet" was published in China in 2001, the title was simply changed to "Tintin in China's Tibet." Only after protests from Casterman and the Hergé Foundation did the album regain its original title.
The riddle of the Tibetan edition
So while we've learned a great deal about the album's history, the Tibetan edition itself remains a riddle. Its origins, the translator's name and the print run we were unable to establish. Even Tintinologist.org, which in its long list of foreign-language editions of "Tintin in Tibet" records Basque, Bernese German, Vietnamese and Cape Verdean Creole, does not list the Tibetan title.
An album whose entire magic lies in the white, in the unsaid, in the mystery of the Himalayas becomes, in this edition, a mystery itself – one that can now be viewed and acquired in our shop.
We have only a single copy – first come, first served.
The german, french, italian und english editions are available at a more affordable price and in greater supply.