At last author Fan Wen (范稳) has his reward for a decade of immersion in the multicultural wonderland along the Yunnan-Tibet border: Dadi Yage (大地雅歌), the closing novel in his longish trilogy, has just been published in Chinese.

That day in 1999 when he came across the "lonely" grave of a martyred Swiss missionary in Lancangjiang Canyon, Father Maurice Tornay, he realized he had found his "sacred vocation". Indeed, the area straddling the provinces of Yunnan and Sichuan and Tibet autonomous region is an anthropologist's dream. One finds Tibetans, Han, Naxi, Yi, Lisu and other ethnic groups living together.

"I find describing the interaction - and collisions - between different cultures a challenging and engaging affair," Fan says. "Conflicts have taken place due to differences in culture and faith, like wars between Naxi and Tibetans, and Tibetans and Han. Irreconcilable contradictions occurred between Tibetan Buddhism and Catholicism when the latter was introduced."