PERHAPS A GIFT VOUCHER FOR MUM?: MOTHER'S DAY
Gulchehra Hoja is a Uyghur journalist based in Washington, DC and one of the world's most prominent voices fighting what the US government in January 2021 officially proclaimed the genocide and crimes against humanity against the Uyghurs. Her reporting on the situation in Xinjiang for Radio Free Asia - which led to the incarceration of her entire extended family - has been widely recognized in the US and Europe, and led to honors such as the 2019 Magnitsky Human Rights Award; the Courage in Journalism Award from the International Women's Media Foundation in 2020; her recognition as one of the 500 most influential Muslims in the world every year since 2016; and a platform at Tina Brown's Women in the World summit and the Oslo Freedom Forum. She has been profiled for the Washington Post and Financial Times, among many other publications. Working closely with larger publications such as the New York Times and Guardian, as well as directly with the State Department, she has also been central to bringing to light both the stories of escapees from East Turkistan's concentration camps, and exposing China's use of Uyghurs for forced labour in their cotton and wig-making industries.
Gulchehra's story, and her work to shed light on the Chinese Communist Party's genocide of the Uyghurs, has been carried out at a high price. This book offers a valuable look at the experiences that led to her dedicated journalism, and her fight to preserve and live out Uyghur culture -- Nury Turkel, author of No Escape: The True Story of China's Genocide of the Uyghurs On one level this immensely significant book is a memoir of a journalist overcoming tremendous odds and making unimaginable sacrifices to tell the truth. On another it tells the terrible story of the cultural genocide of the Uyghur people at the hands of the Chinese government. I found this heart-rending book impossible to put down and hope it finds the global audience it deserves -- Peter Oborne A Stone Is Most Precious Where It Belongs is a brave and brilliant book. It is a window into topics ranging from efforts to maintain Uyghur culture in the face of suffocating propaganda in Chinese state media through to the opportunities and agonies of exile. But most gripping is Gulchehra Hoja's willingness to share not just her story but herself - humour and humility, pain and love and faith -- Sophie Richardson, China Director at Human Rights Watch In this moving, deeply personal account of a family's collective anguish, Hoja, a reporter for Radio Free Asia, re-creates in intimate detail her life story within the tight Uyghur community and their ultimate persecution and imprisonment... we are lucky to have this important historical record of what she - and so many others - endured. A heartfelt, accessible story of a determined warrior for her oppressed people * Kirkus Reviews *
