Woeser

Woeser (also written Öser; full name: Tsering Woeser; Tibetan: ཚེ་རིང་འོད་ཟེར་, Wylie: tshe-ring 'od-zer, Lhasa dialect IPA: [t͡sʰérìŋ wö́sèː] ; Chinese: 唯色; pinyin: Wéisè, Han name Chéng Wénsà 程文萨; born 1966) is a Tibetan activist, blogger, poet and essayist in China.

Biography

Woeser, a quarter-Han and three quarters-Tibetan, was born in Lhasa. Her grandfather, Han ethnic, was an officer in the Nationalist Army of the Kuomintang and her father was a high rank Army officer in the People's Liberation Army. When she was a small child, her family relocated to the Kham area of western Sichuan province. In 1988, she graduated from Southwest University for Nationalities in Chengdu with a degree in Chinese literature. She worked as a reporter in Kardzé and later in Lhasa and has lived in Beijing since 2003 as a result of political problems. Woeser is married to Wang Lixiong, a renowned author who frequently writes about Tibet. According to Reporters sans frontières, "Woeser is one of the few Tibetan authors and poets to write in Chinese." As the government refused to give her a passport, she sued the authorities.