Blake Kerr was born in Ithaca, New York in 1958. He graduated from Dartmouth College and Suny Buffalo School of Medicine. In 1987 he traveled to Tibet where he witnessed the violent repression of Tibetan nationalist demonstrations by Chinese police. Since then he has journeyed
HIS HOLINESS THE FOURTEENTH DALAI LAMA is considered the foremost Buddhist leader of our time. The exiled head of the Tibetan people, he is a Nobel Peace Laureate, a Congressional Gold Medal recipient, and a remarkable teacher and scholar who has authored over one hundred books.*with Desmond Tutu, he co-authored The Book of Joy, which has spent several weeks on the NYT bestseller list.
In 1939 Harrer was a member of the Nanga Parbat Expedition that was interned in India by the British at the outbreak of World War II. He escaped by way of Tibet, and during his seven years there, he was unofficial tutor to the Dalai Lama in Lhasa, whom he taught geography, arithmetic, and English. Harrer is an Austrian, and during his years at the College and University of Graz, he climbed hundreds of walls and ridges in the Alps, some for the first time.