Red Poppies by Alai, translated by Howard Goldblatt and Sylvia Li-chun Lin (Houghton Mifflin). This witty first novel by an ethnic Tibetan living in Sichuan, China, is a complex political parable. Like the "idiot" son who is the novel's narrator and unlikely hero, Alai's story echoes a legendary Tibetan wise man who "preferred wisdom masked by stupidity."