Victor Chan

Victor Chan has known the Dalai Lama for over 40 years, and in 2005 they co-founded the Dalai Lama Center for Peace and Education. The Dalai Lama and Victor Chan also co-authored The Wisdom of Compassion: Stories of Remarkable Encounters and Timeless Insights. Their previous work, The Wisdom of Forgiveness: Intimate Conversations and Travels, was shortlisted for the Nautilus Prize, New York and translated into 14 languages. Chan is also the author of The Tibet Handbook: A Pilgrimage Guide.

Victor Chan was born and raised in Hong Kong. After high school he attended colleges in Canada and the US.

In 1971, needing a break from his studies, Chan bought a VW bus in Utrecht, Holland and planned to make his way overland to India. A few months into the trip he found himself spending half a year in Afghanistan, then a haven for dropouts and would-be adventurers.

At the end of his sojourn he was abducted, together with two fellow travelers, Cheryl from New York and Rita from Munich, by three rifle-wielding Afghan men. They managed to escape after three days and Chan traveled with Cheryl to India. It turned out that she had a letter of introduction to the Dalai Lama.

It was in March of 1972 that Chan, an ethnic Chinese, sat face-to-face with the exiled Tibetan leader for the first of many encounters. This unusual story is first told in The Wisdom of Forgiveness: Intimate Conversations and Journeys (Riverhead Books, 2004), a book co-authored by the Dalai Lama and Chan. The book was short-listed for the Best Spiritual Book of 2005 (Nautilus Prize, New York) and translated into 14 languages.

The Dalai Lama and Chan’s new book, the Wisdom of Compassion: Stories of Remarkable Encounters and Timeless Insights, was published by Riverhead on Dec 27, 2012.