Australia and New Zealand: Penguin Books, 2002. Pbk ISBN 0670040320

Canada, Hong Kong, USA: Houghton Mifflin, 2002.
Hbd ISBN 0618119647

Hong Kong, UK: Methuen Publishing, 2002. Hdb ISBN 0413771822

India: Penguin India, 2002.
Pbk ISBN 0143028499

Red Poppies is Alai's first novel and it has been beautifully rendered into English by the translators Howard Goldblatt and Sylvia Li-chun Lin. It is an outstanding novel, described by the writer Mo Yan as "a masterpiece." Alai writes in Chinese, but he is an ethnic Tibetan. In the 1980s, the translators tell us, Alai published a story about a legendary wise man, Aku Tonpa, whom Alai considered to represent "the Tibetans' aspirations and oral traditions." Aku Tonpa "preferred the wisdom masked by stupidity" and he is the model for the "idiot" son who is the narrator and unlikely hero in Alai's novel. There is an epic, cinematic quality to this rich and dense novel, and it is a also a book that invites readers to move beyond the black and white images they might have of either Tibetans or Chinese. The first novel in a projected trilogy, Red Poppies is a complex political parable that can be read on several levels. It is a sensuous, riveting read, and a moving elegy to the lost world of the author's homeland, in all its cruelty, beauty, and romance.