Blue Poppies

by Jonathan Falla

Jonathan Falla weaves a powerful tale of love and war, exile and homecoming...and of one man’s desire to lose himself in a foreign land, only to find himself caught in a time of chaos and change.

Blue Poppies

The year is 1950 and, as the world recovers from the ravages of World War II, the Chinese army is perched on the border of a fragile land awaiting its destiny. Jamie Wilson, a young Scottish wireless operator and veteran of the war, has just arrived in the remote Tibetan village of Jyeko. He has come on business--to establish a radio outpost--but his journey will resonate much more deeply.

Like those who have traveled to this place before him, Jamie, the Ying-gi-li, is mesmerized by the majestic mountain ranges and enigmatic people, but he will also find an uncommon refuge in its unyielding beauty and in the arms of the willful Puton, a young widow cast out by the people of Jyeko. Inexorably drawn together by a shared loneliness, Jamie and Puton discover a rare passion and the promise of reconnection and belonging--until the voice of Radio Peking crackles over the airwaves, announcing the imminent advance of the Chinese army. Amid the ensuing violence and tumult, Jamie and Puton must embrace their fate and that of the remarkable land that has brought them together. What lies before them and the people of Jyeko is a harrowing journey across a breathtaking landscape...and an extraordinary tale of pride and loyalty, survival and awakening.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, Historical, Asia, China

240 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Jonathan Falla was born in 1954 in Jamaica, where his father lectured in English Literature at the University of the West Indies. The family returned to England a year later on a boat laden with bananas.

During the 1990s Jonathan was writing drama. A BBC feature film, The Hummingbird Tree, was shot in Trinidad with a local crew, and went on to win several awards. This helped Jonathan to gain the first Fulbright/T.E.B.Clarke Fellowship to study at the film school of the University of Southern California. The script that he wrote there concerned the Chinese occupation of Tibet. It was never filmed, but became his first published novel, Blue Poppies. Other drama productions included Down the Tubes, a play for community theatre in Edinburgh, and River of Dreams, a musical for children with composer Gordon Murch. He was also translator and scriptwriter for Diriamba!, a co-production between the Edinburgh Theatre Workshop and Teatro Nixtayolero of Nicaragua which won a ‘Fringe First’ on the Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Five other novels followed: Poor Mercy, Glenfarron, and The Physician of Sanlucar, The White Porcupine, and Good News from Riga.
Jonathan has also written wide-ranging non-fiction, including an edited war memoir of his father, The Luck of the Devil, a collection of essays and travel writing, Beyond the Roadblocks, and an illustrated memoir of the 'hippy trail' to India in 1974, Saama: Innocents in Asia. His account of a year spent with the Karen rebels in Burma, True Love & Bartholomew, is part ethnography, part autobiography, and part historical study, and is widely recognised as a major contribution to the understanding of ethnic conflicts in Asia.
Jonathan is currently an arts lecturer for the UK's Open University, and for ten years has been director of the St Andrews University summer school in creative writing.

Reviews

[Maria · Rating 5 out of 5]

Oi. Tämä pieni helmi osui käteeni kirjastossa sattumalta. Pidin sen henkilöistä, jonkinlaisesta hiljaisesta huumorista ja tarinasta, joka oli kuulas, kaunis ja viihdyttävä, vaikka traaginenkin. 1950-luvun Tiibet, montako tarinaa olet sieltä lukenut? Lue tämä.

[Maayan Schwab · Rating 5 out of 5]

I randomly bought this book at a bookstore's going out of business sale because I liked the cover - and it was one of the most beautiful stories I've ever read.

[Annie]

Blue Poppies is the story of two unlikely lovers who get caught in the turmoil of China’s invasion of Tibet in 1950. Puton is a young widow who came from Lhasa to a very remote town with her tax collector husband, stayed after he died, and struggles to get along in Jyeko when all the other townspeople think she’s bad luck. Jamie is a Scottish WWII veteran who takes a job setting up a radio post in Jyeko to gather news about the Chinese army’s intentions...

Read the rest of my review at A Bookish Type.

[Lissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this book. I thought it was interesting how the main character viewed Tibet based on his emotions at the moment. I think that is very true to life, especially for someone in his twenties as he was.

[Katherine · Rating 3 out of 5]

I hate that i can't add 1/2 stars! I rarely rate a book 5 stars - 5 means Awesome, You Must Read! 4 is a great book. 3 a good one. I would like to give Blue Poppies 3 and 1/2 stars. Certainly worth taking the time to read. The story and its' characters will stay with you long after you have come to the last page.

[Pauline · Rating 3 out of 5]

Really this should be 3.5 stars. A beautiful tale of The Tibetan people during the Chinese occupation of 1950. I didn’t buy into the love story - it was a bit superficial to me. It also took me a lot longer to get onto this book. Once it got going though, a worthwhile read.

[Sanna · Rating 2 out of 5]

Upeisiin maisemiin ja kiinnostavaan ympäristöön sijoittuva kirja. Stoori jäi toki vähän tylsäksi ja yksitoikkoiseksi🤔

[Deborah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Started off so promising, strong characters and sense of place. Then it got grim. Then it got boring. Then it ended.

[Penny · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am glad that I recently watched a special on the Himalayas on the Nature channel as I was able to picture so well the physical challenges of the land. I am giving a 5 star rating because I love lyrical writing and this book has that. "The valleys were deep wounds slashed into the Tibetan massif, lined with black rock and scatterings of dwarf rhododendron. There were half-hidden cols and sunless gorges, pockets of iced-over marsh through which the yaks' hoofs smashed into greasy mud, and waterfalls like frozen mare's tails."

The story is not predictable, so it is more attuned to "real life." It is 1950 and the Tibetans of a small mountain village face the invasion of the Chinese, but the main character is a radio operator from Scotland.

[KarenLee · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this book and cared about the characters. I was a bit unhappy with the main character, but he's just a young man, and does make a young man's mistakes. This is an engaging story of life in Tibet during the Chinese invasion of 1950. It's full of heartbreak and love and everyday life in the village of Jyeko.

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating fictional account of the Communist invasion of a village in Tibet displaying sympathies for both sides. Good if you like historical fiction - short too!

[Jacqueline · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love this book. 1950, China invading Tibet, Scottish radio tech caught up in the life of a Tibetan village . . .

[Jennifer Young · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lovely.

[Dora McFadden · Rating 4 out of 5]

Something I picked up out of the blue and really enjoyed the story.

[Iris P · Rating 3 out of 5]

Evocative and transporting. Described dichotomies and contradictions of human character quite well. Loved seeing that the fellow comes from Inverkeithing.

[Sue Corbett · Rating 4 out of 5]

The first book I ever reviewed for a magazine. Unusual and really good plot.

[TienvoorNegen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I just finished this beautifully written book. There could be happening more, but the stillness and poetic sentences grabbed me throughout this book.

*sighs a big big sigh*

[Allie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting book

[Jan Scranton · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought I was going to learn more about blue poppies.