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Waiting to Be Arrested at Night

A Uyghur Poet's Memoir of China's Genocide

Tahir Hamut Izgil Joshua L. Freeman Joshua L. Freeman

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English
JONATHAN CAPE
31 October 2023
A Uyghur poet's piercing memoir of life under the most coercive surveillance regime in history

A Uyghur poet's piercing memoir of life under the most coercive surveillance regime in history
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*LITHUB'S #1 BEST-REVIEWED NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023
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*A FINANCIAL TIMES BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023
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*AN ECONOMIST BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023
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'Essential reading' AI WEIWEI, author of 1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows

'Deserves to be read widely... Beautiful' FINANCIAL TIMES

If you took an Uber in Washington DC a few years ago, there's a chance your driver was one of the greatest living Uyghur poets, and one of only a handful from his minority Muslim community to escape the genocide being visited upon his homeland in western China.

A successful filmmaker, innovative poet and prominent intellectual, Tahir Hamut Izgil had long been acquainted with state surveillance and violence, having spent three years in a labour camp on fabricated charges.

But in 2017, the Chinese government's repression of its Uyghur citizens assumed a terrifying new intensity- critics were silenced; conversations became hushed; passports were confiscated; and Uyghurs were forced to provide DNA samples and biometric data.

As Izgil's friends disappeared one by one, it became clear that fleeing the country was his family's only hope.

Escape to America spared Izgil's family the internment camps that have swallowed over a million Uyghurs. It also allowed this rare personal testimony of the Xinjiang genocide to reach the wider world.

Waiting to Be Arrested at Night charts the ongoing destruction of a community and a way of life. It is a call for the world to awaken to a humanitarian catastrophe, an unforgettable story of courage, escape and survival, and a moving tribute to Izgil's friends and fellow Uyghurs whose voices have been silenced.

By:  
Introduction by:  
Translated by:  
Imprint:   JONATHAN CAPE
Country of Publication:   United Kingdom
Dimensions:   Height: 214mm,  Width: 136mm,  Spine: 24mm
Weight:   280g
ISBN:   9781787334021
ISBN 10:   1787334023
Pages:   176
Publication Date:  
Audience:   General/trade ,  Professional and scholarly ,  College/higher education ,  ELT Advanced ,  Undergraduate
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active

Tahir Hamut Izgil (Author) Tahir Hamut Izgil is one of the foremost poets writing in the Uyghur language. He grew up in Kashgar, an ancient city in the southwest of the Uyghur homeland. After attending college in Beijing, he returned to the Uyghur region and emerged as a prominent film director. His poetry has appeared, in Joshua L. Freeman's English translation, in the New York Review of Books, Asymptote, Gulf Coast, and Berkeley Poetry Review, and have also been extensively translated into Chinese, Japanese, and Turkish. In 2017, as the Chinese state began the mass internment of the Uyghur people, Izgil fled with his family to the United States. He lives near Washington, D.C. Joshua L. Freeman (Translator) Joshua L. Freeman is a historian of modern China and the leading translator of Uyghur poetry into English. He is currently a postdoctoral fellow at the Princeton Society of Fellows and a lecturer in Princeton's East Asian Studies Department. His writing has appeared in the New York Review of Books, New York Times and Times Literary Supplement, and his translations have appeared in the Atlantic, Guardian and New Statesman.

Reviews for Waiting to Be Arrested at Night: A Uyghur Poet's Memoir of China's Genocide

To call this merely 'a good book' is an understatement - it is essential reading. -- Ai Weiwei Elegiac and deeply courageous, a most powerful literary indictment of the unfettered power of the state. A remarkable book. -- Philippe Sands, author of East West Street A terrifying, compelling read of one family's efforts to escape the jaws that were closing around them and millions of others in China's far western region of Xinjiang. -- Ian Johnson Even if we can't comprehend why this tragedy is happening in Xinjiang, Tahir Hamut Izgil reminds us why it matters -- Peter Hessler, author of RIVER TOWN Tahir Hamut Izgil's powerful and poignant memoir is an instant classic. He lays bare the vicious genocidal persecution of the precious Uyghur people in a very personal and persuasive way. His grand poetic temperament exemplifies the unstoppable resilience of the rich Uyghur soul. -- Cornel West, author of Democracy Matters


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