He writes of leaving home to drive tractors at refugee settlements, educating refugee children, producing plays at the Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts and collecting intelligence for the Tibetan Office of Research and Analysis (TORA) and for France's External Intelligence Agency (SDECE). He uses these anecdotes not so much as an autobiography but as a framing device to recount the lives. deeds and, too often, tragedies of the many Tibetans he encountered and befriended throughout his life-nearly all of whom played vital roles in shaping the recent history of their country but whose contributions are still unsung and forgotten. Norbu's lifelong commitment to collecting and orchestrating the "echoes" of these many forgotten voices from the past has resulted in a lyrical, learned and compassionate book that could well be described as the prose epic of the Tibetan freedom struggle.