Waiting to Be Arrested at Night

A Uyghur Poet's Memoir of China's Genocide

By: Tahir Hamut Izgil, Joshua L. Freeman - introduction translator

Narrated by: Greg Watanabe

Winner of the National Book Critics Circle John Leonard Prize, awarded to the best first book of the year

Named one of the best books of the year by: THE NEW YORK TIMES • THE WASHINGTON POST • THE ECONOMIST • TIME

A poet's account of one of the world's most urgent humanitarian crises, and a harrowing tale of a family's escape from genocide

One by one, Tahir Hamut Izgil's friends disappeared. The Chinese government's brutal persecution of the Uyghur people had continued for years, but in 2017 it assumed a terrifying new scale. The Uyghurs, a predominantly Muslim minority group in western China, were experiencing an echo of the worst horrors of the twentieth century, amplified by China's establishment of an all-seeing high-tech surveillance state. Over a million people have vanished into China’s internment camps for Muslim minorities.

Tahir, a prominent poet and intellectual, had been no stranger to persecution. After he attempted to travel abroad in 1996, police tortured him until he confessed to fabricated charges and sent him to a re-education through labor camp. But even having endured three years in the camp, he could never have predicted the Chinese government’s radical solution to the Uyghur question two decades later. Was the first sign when Tahir was interrogated for hours after a phone call with a fellow poet in the Netherlands? Or when his old friend was sentenced to life in prison simply for calling for Uyghurs' legal rights to be enforced? Perhaps it was when the police seized Uyghurs’ radios and installed jamming equipment to cut them off from the outside world.

Once Tahir noticed that the park near his home was nearly empty because so many neighbors had been arrested, he knew the police would be coming for him any day. One night, after Tahir’s daughters were asleep, he placed by his door a sturdy pair of shoes, a sweater, and a coat so that he could stay warm if the police came for him in the middle of the night. It was clear to Tahir and his wife that fleeing the country was the family's only hope.

Waiting to Be Arrested at Night is the story of the political, social, and cultural destruction of Tahir Hamut Izgil's homeland. Among leading Uyghur intellectuals and writers, he is the only one known to have escaped China since the mass internments began. His book is a call for the world to awaken to the unfolding catastrophe, and a tribute to his friends and fellow Uyghurs whose voices have been silenced.

©2023 Tahir Hamut Izgil (P)2023 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

“A personal and moving look at the persecution of the Uyghur people by the Chinese government . . . Izgil resists detailing the violence he and his people have faced, but his restraint makes the descriptions of the police’s constant harassment and surveillance feel all the more Orwellian . . . In absorbing prose, translated by Joshua L. Freeman, Izgil recounts the process of finding a way out . . . A harrowing story of personal resilience and an exposé on an urgent humanitarian crisis.”—TIME’s 100 Must-Read Books of 2023

“Tahir Hamut Izgil evokes the fear and danger of daily life for a Chinese ethnic minority that has been the target of a brutal crackdown . . . Waiting to Be Arrested at Night is an outlier among books about human rights. There are no scenes of torture, no violence and few sweeping proclamations about genocide. Izgil writes with calculated restraint. As his title suggests, the terror is in the anticipation. 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, The New York Times Book Review

“A lucid and quietly terrifying memoir . . . A lived-in page-turner with the slow, grim boil of a Le Carré novel . . . threaded with a few of Izgil’s short striking poems. Together they tell a story immediately accessible to anyone who’s ever found themselves tied up in red tape—and capture, in harrowing miniature, a portrait of horrors we can scarcely imagine . . . Read Waiting to Be Arrested at Night for its many human-scale moments of sorrow and grace.”—The Washington Post

Important and compelling

I loved this book. It was an important introduction to the world of the Uighurs in China.

Stunning personal account

A must-listen for anyone eager to understand what is happening to the Uyghur people in their homeland and in exile. Beautifully written and translated.

Stunning

A must read account of the Uyghur experience in China in the last ten years. Beautifully written and translated.

Waiting to be arrested

In "Waiting to Be Arrested at Night,"

celebrated Uyghur poet Tahir Hamut Izgil presents a harrowing narrative of life under the Chinese regime, capturing a terrifying reality of relentless surveillance and psychological torment.

Lyrical, heartfelt, and perfectly paced, Izgil's narrative unfolds with a slow, simmering burn, illustrating the transformations of his homeland, Urumqi, from a bustling city to a nightmare of oppression, surveillance, and fear.

The author's vulnerability is palpable as he charts his journey from renown to persecution, to escape, and the subsequent guilt of survival, resulting in a deeply intimate and eye-opening exploration of life as a Uyghur in China.

The profound narrative extends beyond the individual, illuminating the Chinese government's brutal control and devastating impact on the Uyghurs.

Izgil's tale is one of absurdity, horror, and resilience, wherein routine transforms into grotesque and schools metamorphose into detention centers.

Despite escaping to the United States, the shadow of the homeland looms large, resulting in a struggle with language barriers, cultural disconnect, and survivor's guilt. Izgil's memoir, though imbued with a profound sense of loss, becomes an illuminating testament to the Uyghur's dystopian existence, portraying a chilling narrative that showcases the complex, contradictory emotions of trading a homeland for safety.

It is a profoundly moving memoir about China's oppression of the Uyghurs.

Next time you take an Uber in Washington, DC, you may have the privilege of being driven by one of the intellectuals of Uyghurs.