'This gripping memoir shows the courage and cost of telling a truer story' GUARDIAN BOOK OF THE
DAY'A memoir of an extraordinary life which takes in the past 50 years of Xinjiang's history
... fascinating' THE TIMES'Revelatory' SUNDAY TELEGRAPHA powerful and urgent memoir by Uyghur
activist Gulchehra Hoja - a remarkable woman who went from being a beloved star on Chinese
children's TV to a journalist whose reporting on the oppression of her people led to her entire
extended family being imprisoned.In 2018 twenty-four members of Gulchehra Hoja's family
including her elderly parents were arrested by the Chinese state. Gulchehra had been forced to
leave her family behind when she fled to a new life in the United States and the arrests were
an act of retaliation against her investigations for Radio Free Asia into the plight of the
Uyghur people. For the Uyghurs this kind of oppression is not unusual. In her stunning memoir
Gulchehra shares her story: an account of life under Chinese rule in East Turkestan and her
journey to becoming a spokesperson against genocide. The grandchild of a musician and the
daughter of an archaeologist Gulchehra grew up with Uyghur culture and history running through
her veins. She showed her gifts early on as a dancer actress and storyteller and she became a
major television star. But she began to understand what China was doing to her people as well
as her own complicity as a journalist. As her growing fame and political awakening coincided
she made it her mission to expose the crimes Beijing is committing against its own citizens.
Filled with the beauty of East Turkestan and its people A Stone is Most Precious Where it
Belongs is the story of a woman who has been willing to risk her own life to expose the
truth.'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
