Gene Smith: Irreplaceable Loss – From Per K. Soerensen

With immense grief we received the news about E. Gene Smith’s passing. Tibetology will never be the same again. Throughout my career I too met Gene many times, in Europe, in USA and in Bhutan. Gene (prior to his amazing work for the preservation of Tibetan scripture and Buddhist culture in general, I heard from my late teacher Erik Haarh (whom Gene praised so much after he once visited the Royal Library of Copenhagen back in the sixties where Haarh worked as librarian) about this selfless Tibetologist. Since then I too benefitted from Gene’s immense learning and collaborative spirit. In 2005 a conference held in Thimphu, Bhutan hosted by the Royal Library of Denmark and the National Library of Bhutan under the title Written Treasuries of Bhutan: Mirror of the Past and Bridge to the Future was dedicated to the enormous contribution of Gene to the preservation of Himalayan literature.
In gratitude Per K. Soerensen, Leipzig.
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