Woeser (also written Öser; full name: Tsering Woeser; Tibetan: ཚེ་རིང་འོད་ཟེར་, Wylie: tshe-ring 'od-zer; Chinese: 唯色; pinyin: Wéisè, Han name Chéng Wénsà 程文萨) (born 1966) is a Tibetan poet and essayist in China.
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Woeser, a quarter-Han and three quarters-Tibetan, was born in Lhasa. Her grandfather was an officer in the Nationalist Army of the Kuomintang and her father was a high rank Army officer in the People's Liberation Army. When she was a small child, her family relocated to the Kham area of western Sichuan province. In 1988, she graduated from Southwest University for Nationalities in Chengdu with a degree in Chinese literature. She worked as a reporter in Kardzé and later in Lhasa and has lived in Beijing since 2003 as a result of political problems. Woeser is married to Wang Lixiong, a renowned author who frequently writes about Tibet. According to Reporters sans frontières, "Woeser is one of the few Tibetan authors and poets to write in Chinese."[1]
Woeser is the author of a book, Notes on Tibet (西藏笔记; Xīzàng Bǐjì). The Tibet Information Network quotes unnamed sources that the book was banned by the government around September 2003.[2]
According to UNPO, shortly after the alleged ban Woeser was also fired from her job and lost her status with her work unit.[3] Radio Free Asia reported that she continued to post a variety of poems and articles to her two blogs: Maroon Map (绛红色的地图, oser.tibetcul.net), which, according to the author, was visited primarily by Tibetans, and the Woeser blog (blog.daqi.com/weise), which was visited primarily by those of Han ethnicity. According to RFA, on July 28, 2006, both blogs were closed by order of the government, apparently in response to postings in which she expressed birthday greetings to the Dalai Lama and touched on other sensitive topics. Woeser stated that she would continue writing and speaking.[4]
During the Tibetan unrest of 2008, Woeser and her husband were put under house arrest after speaking to reporters.[5] In December 2008 Woeser was one of the original 303 signatories to Charter 08,[6][7] now joined by thousands more.[8] In July 2009 Woeser and her husband were one of more than 100 signatories to a petition asking Chinese authorities to released detained ethnic-Uyghur professor of economics Ilham Tohti.[9]