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NARRATOR

Pamela Greensmith

Pamela has been assisting the marketing and media team in the recording of audio narration of the various translations. She is a source of great encouragement from Tib Shelf's earliest days and looks forward to recording more in the months and years to come. Pamela's narration style has been described as ethereal and soothing and it is a great pleasure to have her on the team. 

Our Team

Tib Shelf was born out of a desire to share. We are a team of dedicated translators with a mission to translate, present and preserve Tibetan wisdom, history & culture.

Our Story

The Founders

Having met at the Oriental Institute, University of Oxford, the three founders discovered that there is a vast cache of translated material, stored on the computers of researchers and others, unlikely to ever see the light of day. Furthering their discussion at their local watering hole, the Rose & Crown, and thinking it a great shame, they realised this was an opportunity for them to help reveal and make accessible the sources that lay behind each and every academic article. This has since developed into reaching out and inviting all Tibetan translators who would like a platform to present their translations to reach a wide audience. 

Tib Shelf was Born from a Desire to Share.

GET INVOLVED

We are always looking to grow our existing library of translated Tibetan literature. If you would like to join our mission and get involved as a contributor, please see below various options.

PUBLISH WITH US

We Provide an Open Platform for all Genres of Tibetan Texts

Dissertations and journal articles are finished and printed, yet their primary sources sit in draft never to see the light of day. People run out of time, moving on to a subsequent publication. Tib Shelf is the platform for those hidden gems, storing draft translations for future enquirers and cooperatively helping to polish and publish translations. If you are interested in publishing or inquiring about our selection of draft material open to contributing translators, we want to hear from you. 

REQUEST A TRANSLATION

We Provide Translation Services for all Genres of Tibetan Texts

We conduct a thorough and rigorous translation and editing process to ensure that our translations are of the highest quality. Each translation passes through multiple iterative stages by each member of our team to deliver accurate and easily readable translations. We cover all genres of Tibetan texts. To request a translation, please write to us with the title or copy of the original Tibetan source, and we will endeavour to respond to you within 48 hours with a quote. 

EDITING SERVICES

We Provide Editing Services for all Genres of Tibetan Texts

We know translating Tibetan texts across different time periods and genres can be challenging even for the best. It is for this reason we provide editing services for translation review, comprehensive editing, copyediting, and proofreading. Our editing service includes reviewing the initial Tibetan text from our native Tibetan translators before proceeding to ensure a polished final product. If you require editing for your manuscript, regardless of its level of finalisation, please write to us for more information.

MAKE A DONATION

Help Preserve and Present Tibetan Literature 

Tib Shelf is a non-profit organisation founded by a group of aspiring Tibetologists with a mission to help preserve Tibetan literature. We are reliant on the goodwill of those willing to offer their time, translations and financial donations. Your donations will enable us to continue to grow our cache of translated open-source publications, ensure they continue to be openly accessible through a user-friendly platform, and support under-funded translators for their continued endeavours towards this worthy cause.

THANK YOU

Thank you for visiting Tib Shelf. We hope that Tib Shelf proves to be a useful and welcoming platform to all. One that encourages collaboration and appreciation for all contributors to what we believe, a very worthy cause. 

TRANSLATOR

Lowell Cook

Lowell is an independent scholar who translates and researches the entire breadth of Tibetan literature, from the ancient Dunhuang manuscripts to contemporary poetry. He completed his MA in Translation, Philology, and Textual Interpretation at the Rangjung Yeshe Institute in Nepal. He is the author of Tibetan Pure Land Buddhism and translator of Sangak Tenzin’s A White Conch Spiralling Toward Happiness: Poems of a Tibetan Master. His translations and writings have appeared on 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha, High Peaks Pure Earth, The Los Angeles Review of Books’ China Channel, Lotsawa House, and other venues. 

TRANSLATOR

Dr. Rachael Griffiths

Dr. Rachael Griffiths holds a DPhil in Oriental Studies from the University of Oxford, with a thesis on the autobiography of Sumpa Khenpo Yeshe Paljor. Her research interests include life writing, monastic and intellectual networks, and Sino-Tibetan-Mongolian relations in the early modern period.

TRANSLATOR

Dr. George FitzHerbert

Dr. George FitzHerbert currently teaches Tibetan Language, History and Literature at the University of Oxford (until 2022). He is also a member of the ERC-funded TibArmy research team based in Paris. He completed his DPhil on the Tibetan Gesar Epic in 2008 and his research spans various issues in Tibetan cultural and religious history. He has also worked as a journalist for the BBC and as a freelance researcher and ghostwriter.

TRANSLATOR

Patrick Dowd

Patrick Dowd is a PhD Candidate in the Department of Anthropology at the University of British Columbia. His research focuses on the culture of Tibetan language within the world of Tibetan Buddhism. His essays have been published by Tricycle, Lion’s Roar, and Buddhadharma, and his translations have appeared on Lotsawa House. Prior to beginning his doctoral work, he spent several years studying, researching, and collaboratively working with Tibetan communities in India, Nepal, and Tibet.

TRANSLATOR

Rinzin Dorjee Drongpa

Rinzin was born in Tibet and studied at a Tibetan refugee school in India. He received his MA in philosophy from Delhi University. During his time at the university, he also got the opportunity to study Tibetan Buddhism and art. In 2018 he participated in a three-month intensive translation workshop conducted by the Library of Tibetan Works and Archives. He is currently working as a freelance translator and continuing with his ngöndro practice (a preliminary practice in Tibetan Buddhism). Rinzin is also a self-taught pencil portrait artist and loves sketching in his free time. 

TRANSLATOR

Michael Elison 

Michael is a professional Java Developer, as well as Full Stack Developer with experience in HTML, CSS, JavaScript, MongoDB, SQL.

He also has a great interest in Tibetan Language and Culture. In 2019, he graduated from the University of Oxford as a Master of Philosophy in Tibetan and Himalayan Studies. For his Master’s thesis, Michael conducted research on the practice of Dream Yoga in Bon in comparison with Tibetan Buddhist traditions.

TRANSLATOR

Yeshe Khandro 

In addition to holding a bachelor's degree in science, Yeshe Khandro is a Buddhist nun who has completed over twenty years of Buddhist teacher training. Editing for accuracy of meaning in translation was a major part of her job during much of this time. More recently, she has begun to produce some short translations in her spare time.

TRANSLATOR

Dr. Nicole Willock

Nicole Willock (Ph.D. in Tibetan Studies and Religious Studies, Indiana University 2011) is an associate professor of Asian Religions at Old Dominion University in Norfolk, Virginia. Dr. Willock’s research examines the intersections between Tibetan literature, Buddhist modernism, moral agency, and state-driven secularization projects in twentieth-century China. Her book Lineages of the Literary tells the story of how three Tibetan polymaths in the People’s Republic of China: Tséten Zhabdrung (1910–1985), Mugé Samten (1914–1993), and Dungkar Lozang Trinlé (1927–1997) crisscrossed religious and secular domains to revive Tibetan culture in the post-Mao era. She serves as co-chair of the Tibet and Himalayan Religions Unit of the American Academy of Religion.

TRANSLATOR

Marlevis Robaina

In addition to teaching Spanish, following the completion of her Spanish as a Foreign Language Teacher (ELE) at the University of Nebrija, Marlevis is a collaborative content writer for websites and blogs. Closely holding discipline and dedication to her heart has helped her martial arts practice and language acquisition, leading her to study Japanese at the University of Havana. She followed this by earning a Bachelor's Degree in East Asian Studies at the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) and studying Sanskrit Language and Literature Studies (University Extension Course) at the University of Barcelona (UB). Inspired by Buddhist philosophy, Marlevis started studying the Tibetan language with Tibetan teachers and then continued with Easy Tibetan's online courses. In her free time, she loves to make origami and enjoy nature.

TRANSLATOR

Barbara Hazelton (Lama Rinchen Zangmo)

Barbara Hazelton has a BA in Fine Art History, MA in Buddhist Studies, and is a Ph.D. Candidate at the University of Toronto. Her dissertation topic is on the Tibetan King Gesar of Ling Tibetan epic, focusing on its oral tradition and the singers of the tale, the epic bards. She has taught several courses at the University of Toronto and presently the collaborative program with New College. Her background in Tibetan visual imagery and ritual is based on studying with Tibetan scholars and ritual specialists as well as many years of meditation instruction and experience under great Tibetan Buddhist masters. She is a practicing artist training in the Karma Gadri painting tradition. A particular interest of hers is the sacred landscape of Tibet as the confluence of the imaginative world of landscapes, structures, rituals, pilgrimage routes, and literature. She is inspired by the popular genre of the liberation stories (rnam thar), particularly the female models of enlightened activity exemplified by the great realized female practitioners called yoginīs, such as Yeshe Tsogyal and Niguma.  

TRANSLATOR

Dr. Joseph McClellan

Joseph McClellan received a Ph.D. from Columbia University’s Department of Religion. He then taught at colleges in the US, Bangladesh, Myanmar, and Bhutan. He now lives in SE Asia focusing on translation and writing.

TRANSLATOR

Shengnan Dong 

Shengnan Dong is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History of Art and Archaeology at SOAS, London. She studies Buddhist art and architecture with a particular focus on depictions of mandalas and monumental multi-chapelled stupas built in central Tibet during the 12-15th centuries. Shengnan is also interested in the constructed sacred spaces at Buddhist sites across Central Asia and Northern China, as well as pictorial representation of landscape, cosmos and heavenly realms in the Buddhist context. Prior to her doctoral studies, she worked professionally as a photographer, illustrator and film editor. 

Published Translators

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