Alai (author)

Alai (Chinese: 阿来; pinyin: Ālái; Tibetan: ཨ་ལེ་, Wylie: a-le, ZYPY: Alê, Lhasa dialect IPA: [ɑ́lè]; born 1959 in Sichuan province) is a Chinese poet and novelist of Rgyalrong Tibetan descendent. He was also editor of Science Fiction World.

Alai's notable novel Red Poppies (The Dust Settles - Chen'ai Luoding), published in 1998, follows a family of Tibetan chieftains, the Maichi, during the decade or so before the liberation of Tibet by the People's Liberation Army in 1951. Their feudal life in the Tibetan borderlands, narrated by the youngest "idiot" son, is described as cruel, romantic, and full of intrigue (with the incorporation of Tibet into the People's Republic of China presented as a great advance for the Tibetan peasantry). Red Poppies was selected as a finalist for the Kiriyama Prize in 2002 and won the 5th Mao Dun Literary Prize in 2005.