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

Format: Paperback
Pages: 320
Imprint: Virago UK
Publication date: 07/03/2024