Tahir Hamut Izgil

Joshua L. Freeman

An urgent tale of survival and subversion

Deserves to be read and listened to widely... This is a beautiful read. Izgil’s poetic gaze, and the elegant translation by Joshua L Freeman, together produce a compact, compelling prose that pushes you to keep reading on, even as you blink back tears

So much more than a thrilling account of a great escape. It is nothing less than a call to the West not to look away from one of the most terrible genocides of our times

Izgil's memoir is a story about how to survive in, and to negotiate one's way through, a society in which repression has become routine, and the power of the state is unfettered. The book's restraint is also its strength

I… devoured it in one night. It is a stunning work with its lyrical prose and elegiac translation, a page-turner that stands alongside any thriller for the skill with which it builds tension as a noose tightens round an entire community… Tahir reveals again the banality of evil

In the elegant, elliptical poems that appear throughout the text – translated, like the rest of the memoir, with great skill and subtlety by Joshua L. Freeman – Tahir both acknowledges and transforms the worsening political situation. Perhaps one of the most remarkable aspects of the book is its refreshing lack of political rhetoric: there are no pronouncements on the great evil of the Chinese state. Tahir lets the awful facts speak for themselves

A heart-wrenching but beautifully written memoir

More than just a memoir... It is also the story of the Uyghur people and the political, social, and cultural destruction of their homeland by the Chinese state

To call this merely 'a good book' is an understatement - it is essential reading

Ai Weiwei, author of 1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows

An outlier among books about human rights. This is in effect a psychological thriller, although the narrative unfolds like a classic horror movie as relative normalcy dissolves into a nightmare

Barbara Demick, author of Nothing to Envy

A vital and urgent book about the tragedy of the Uyghur people, abandoned by the world and brutally oppressed by the Chinese government. The voice of Tahir Hamut Izgil is one that must be heard

Janine di Giovanni, author of The Morning They Came for Us

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

I was riveted and chastened by Tahir Hamut Izgil's memoir. Izgil's crystalline, courageous prose is a wake-up call for everyone invested in the myth - and also the possibility - of freedom

Tracy K. Smith, Poet Laureate of the United States of America

This 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

An essential testimony to one of the defining crimes against humanity of the twenty-first century so far. The poet Tahir Hamut Izgil is one of the few Uyghurs who escaped just in time to tell us

Philip Gourevitch, author of We Wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families

A terrifying, compelling read of one family's efforts to escape the jaws that were closing around them

Ian Johnson, author of The Souls of China

An exceptionally powerful, profoundly lyrical and beautifully translated book - I urge you to read it

Julia Lovell, author of Maoism: A Global History

Even if we can't comprehend why this tragedy is happening in Xinjiang, Tahir Hamut Izgil reminds us why it matters

A lived-in page-turner with the slow, grim boil of a Le Carré novel (no shooting, but no hope of justice either, with plenty of code words and offstage violence). Lucid and quietly terrifying

A compelling account of Izgil’s ultimately successful escape to the US. It is a story of mounting fear, as friends disappear one by one, and he and others take to sleeping next to a pile of warm clothes that they can hastily put on if the doorbell rings in the night

A Uyghur Poet's Memoir of China's Genocide

A Uyghur poet's piercing memoir of life under the most coercive surveillance regime in history 
 
*WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE'S JOHN LEONARD PRIZE FOR BEST FIRST BOOK* 
*WINNER OF THE CHRISTOPHER G. MOORE PRIZE FOR HUMAN RIGHTS WRITING 2024* 
 
'Essential reading' 
AI WEIWEI, author of 1000 Years of Joys and Sorrows 
 
'Deserves to be read widely' 
FINANCIAL TIMES 
 
As his friends disappeared one by one, it became clear to Tahir Hamut Izgil that fleeing his home in Xinjiang was his family’s only hope. 
 
In this unforgettable story of courage and survival, Tahir charts the Chinese government’s ongoing destruction of the Uyghur community and way of life in spare, gripping, finely tuned prose. 
 
Waiting to Be Arrested at Night is an urgent call for the world to awaken to a humanitarian catastrophe, and a moving tribute to those Uyghurs whose voices have been silenced.

Tahir Hamut Izgil

Praise for Waiting to Be Arrested at Night

An urgent tale of survival and subversion

Deserves to be read and listened to widely... This is a beautiful read. Izgil’s poetic gaze, and the elegant translation by Joshua L Freeman, together produce a compact, compelling prose that pushes you to keep r ...

So much more than a thrilling account of a great escape. It is nothing less than a call to the West not to look away from one of the most terrible genocides of our times

An urgent tale of survival and subversion

Deserves to be read and listened to widely... This is a beautiful read. Izgil’s poetic gaze, and the elegant translation by Joshua L Freeman, together produce a compact, compelling prose that pushes you to keep r ...

So much more than a thrilling account of a great escape. It is nothing less than a call to the West not to look away from one of the most terrible genocides of our times

An urgent tale of survival and subversion

Deserves to be read and listened to widely... This is a beautiful read. Izgil’s poetic gaze, and the elegant translation by Joshua L Freeman, together produce a compact, compelling prose that pushes you to keep r ...

So much more than a thrilling account of a great escape. It is nothing less than a call to the West not to look away from one of the most terrible genocides of our times

Follow penguin

Follow ladybird

Follow puffin

Sign up to the Penguin newsletter