The Russian version of the Dunhuang-based archaeologist Fan Jinshi’s biography, биография фань цзиньши сердце мое в дуньхуане , has just been officially launched at the 2025 Moscow Book Fair. This makes it the second foreign language edition to date; my translation of her《我心归处是敦煌》(Daughter of Dunhuang: Memoir of a Mogao Grottoes Researcher) was published in 2024. Both versions were translated from the original Chinese.
According to a Chinese news item (俄文版), Hindi, Turkish, Kazakh, Persian and Japanese versions are in the works.
Fan Jinshi (樊锦诗), female graduate of New China’s first four-year program in archaeology, went on to spend 50-plus years in the desert overseeing the study, restoration and preservation of Buddhist cave-temples in Gansu Province. She is regarded as a virtual national treasure within China, although the partial opening of the site to mass tourism – a transition she oversaw – has since proved controversial.
For more information about Fan Jinshi, who served as Director of Dunhuang Research Academy from 1998 to 2014, see here.
To read an excerpt from the English edition, visit Ancient Buddhist Cave-temples in the Desert, Red Guards & the Spirit of Peking U.
For excellent graphics and videos of the murals in the Mogao Grottoes, visit Getty’s site.
Ethnic ChinaLit 