n>Ngaba, an eastern Tibetan town with 10,000 people, is “the undisputed world capital of self-immolation.” So writes Barbara Demick, author of “Eat the Buddha,” an oral history of Ngaba. In 2009, she tells us, a Buddhist monk “doused himself in gasoline on the main street, while calling for the return of the Dalai Lama”—Tibet’s exiled spiritual leader. A wave of self-immolations followed. Ms. Demick says that 156 Tibetans have set themselves on fire since then, “nearly one-third of them from Ngaba.” (The most recent was in November 2019.) Thirty were monks from Ngaba’s Kirti Monastery, the town’s largest. Read Full Article »