A journey of filial discovery from an internationally acclaimed artist. Peter Sms receives a letter from his father. "The Red Box is now yours," it says. The brief note worries him and pulls him back to Prague, where the contents of the red box explain the mystery of his father's long absence during the 1950s. Czechoslovakia was behind the iron curtain; Vladimir Sms, a documentary filmmaker, was drafted into the army and sent to China. He left his wife and young son, Peter, thinking he would be home for Christmas. Two Christmases would pass before he was heard from again: Vladimir Sms was lost in Tibet. He met with the Dalai Lama; he witnessed China's invasion of Tibet. When he returned to Prague, he dared not talk to his friends about all he had seen. But he told Peter fabulous stories of his Tibetan experiences. In weaving their two stories together--of the father lost in Tibet and of the small boy in Prague, lost without his father--Sms draws from his father's diary and from his own recollections of his