Press Reviews

• Sophie Richardson, China Director at Human Rights Watch

  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

• Peter Oborne

  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

• Nury Turkel, author of No Escape: The True Story of China’s Genocide of the Uyghurs

  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

• Kirkus Reviews

  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

• Dr Katrina Lantos Swett, President of the Lantos Foundation, past Chair of the US Commission on International Religious Freedom

  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

• Bill Browder, author of Red Notice

  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

• Rachel Aspden, Guardian Book of the Day

  This gripping memoir conveys the courage and cost of telling a truer story

• Sunday Telegraph

  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

• John Phipps

  The Times

  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

• Michael Portillo

  A deeply moving page turner

• Financial 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

• The Economist

  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