A Uyghur poet's piercing memoir of life under the most coercive surveillance regime in
history***LITHUB'S #1 BEST-REVIEWED NON-FICTION BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023*****A FINANCIAL TIMES
BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023****AN ECONOMIST BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023***WINNER OF THE NATIONAL BOOK
CRITICS CIRCLE'S JOHN LEONARD PRIZE FOR BEST FIRST BOOK* '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.
