| Alai | |
| Native Name: | Chinese: 阿来
|
| Native Name Lang: | zh |
| Birth Place: | Barkam, Ngawa Tibetan and Qiang Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan |
| Occupation: | Novelist, Poet |
| Language: | Chinese |
| Alma Mater: | Normal College |
| Period: | 1982–present |
| Genre: | Novels, poetry |
| Notableworks: | Red Poppies |
Alai (; ; born 1959 in Sichuan Province) is a Chinese-language poet and novelist of Rgyalrong Tibetan descent. He is also a former editor of Science Fiction World.[1]
Alai's notable novel Red Poppies, 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 Annexation of Tibet by the People's Republic of China presented as a great advance for the Tibetan peasantry). Red Poppies won the 5th Mao Dun Literary Prize in 2000 and was selected as a finalist for the Kiriyama Prize in 2002.
In 2013, Alai participated in the International Writing Program's Fall Residency at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, IA.[2]