A Stone is Most Precious Where It Belongs

A powerful and urgent memoir of loss, exile and hope by Uyghur activist Gulchehra Hoja

'This gripping memoir conveys the courage and cost of telling a truer story' Guardian Book of the Day

'Revelatory ... The particulars of her story speak for the losses of a people' Sunday Telegraph

'Essential reading' Financial Times

In February 2018, twenty-four members of Uyghur journalist Gulchehra Hoja's family were arrested by the Chinese state as a direct retaliation for her investigations into Chinese oppression of the Uyghur people.

Hoja grew up with her people's culture and history running through her veins. As a young woman, she became a star presenter on Chinese state television, but then she began to understand what China was doing to her people, as well as her own complicity as a journalist. When her rising fame and growing political awakening coincided, she made it her mission, despite the personal cost, to expose the crimes Beijing continues to commit in the far reaches of its nation.

'A memoir of an extraordinary life, which takes in the past 50 years of Xinjiang's history. This story is normally told with statistics, but she illuminates it with the all-important details' The Times

'A deeply moving page turner' Michael Portillo

'Pulses with energy and beauty, making us care about what is being erased at mass scale by telling a deeply personal tale' Sunday Telegraph

'A textured story of how Uyghurs tried to survive and subvert Chinese cruelty' The Economist

This gripping memoir conveys the courage and cost of telling a truer story Rachel Aspden, Guardian Book of the Day
This revelatory memoir pulses with energy and beauty, making us care about what is being erased at mass scale by telling a deeply personal tale ... Her account is not just timely but timeless ... Hoja is a brave woman. The particulars of her story speak for the losses of a people Sunday Telegraph
A memoir of an extraordinary life, which takes in the past 50 years of Xinjiang's history. A Stone Is Most Precious Where It Belongs makes this fascinating history more accessible than ever before. This story is normally told with statistics, but she illuminates it with the all-important details: the tall poplar trees in rural villages; the fuzzy family TV set; the bright green fields stretching out beyond the city where she grew up -- John Phipps The Times
This harrowing account helped me understand better what Uyghurs face under China's repressive regime - and how easy it is to forget those who have disappeared into silence ... essential reading Financial Times
To grasp the Uyghur experience, one must also understand life outside the camps. A textured story of how Uyghurs tried to survive and subvert Chinese cruelty ... [Hoja's] truth-telling comes at an extortionate price The Economist
A deeply moving page turner Michael Portillo
We said "never again" after millions of Jews were killed in the Holocaust, but here we are in 2023 and another genocide is taking place in front of our eyes. Gulchehra Hoja bravely exposes this new holocaust perpetrated by the Chinese communist party in her brilliantly written book, A Stone is Most Precious Where it Belongs. Her story is one of immense sacrifice to expose the truth. As a reporter for Radio Free Asia, Ms Hoja was one of the first people to expose the Uyghur concentration camps in Xinjiang and as a result, her entire extended family were rounded up and imprisoned on those same camps. The suffering of the Uyghur people that she documents is a must read. We owe Gulchehra Hoja an enormous debt of gratitude to bear witness and share this horrifying story -- Bill Browder, author of Red Notice
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
Gulchehra Hoja has given the world that rarest of treasures: a true account that magnificently tells the story of a whole people - the Uyghur nation - while simultaneously telling the most personal and powerful chronicle of one heroic woman's life. Readers will not be able to put down this beautifully written chronicle of Gulchehra's devotion to her family, her people, her faith and to her conscience. She has faced excruciating choices but through it all, her virtue and valour shine through like a beacon of light. This book will make each reader want to live a life of greater purpose -- Dr Katrina Lantos Swett, President of the Lantos Foundation, past Chair of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom

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 - which led to the incarceration of her entire extended family - has been widely recognized in the US and Europe, and has led to honours 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 platforms 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 Turkestan's concentration camps, and exposing China's use of Uyghurs for forced labour in their cotton and wig-making industries.

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