The WEghur Stories Community
There are amazing people with incredible stories all across the Uyghur diaspora. Here is more information about some of the people we have profiled and stories we have shared in episodes of WEghur Stories.
Tahir Hamut Izgil
Tahir Hamut Izgil is one of the most celebrated contemporary Uyghur filmmakers and poets. He has directed countless television shows, films, and documentaries in the Uyghur language.
Akida Pulat
Akida Pulat is an activist living in the United States. Akida is working to raise awareness and secure the freedom of the more than one million Uyghurs currently detained or experiencing forced labor, including her mother, famous Uyghur scholar Rahile Dawut.
Dr. Halmurat Harri Uyghur
Dr. Halmurat Harri Uyghur is an activist living in Finland. He is the founder of the Uyghur Therapy Hotline and the #MeTooUyghur movement. A physician by training, Halmurat travels the world to advocate for the Uyghur cause, including the release of his mother and countless others like her.
Merdan Ehet’eli
Merdan Ehet'eli was born in 1991 in Khotan, a city in the southeast of China's Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. He began writing poetry in high school, and was particularly influenced by the Nothingism school of Uyghur poetry and the pathbreaking Uyghur poet Exmetjan Osman. An accomplished translator, Merdan has translated Dickinson, Borges, and other authors from Chinese into Uyghur, as well as a number of Nothingist poets from Uyghur to Chinese. Merdan studied at Beijing Union University.
Joshua Freeman
Uyghur poetry translation website
Joshua Freeman is a historian of China and Inner Asia at Princeton University. His research focuses on Uyghur cultural history in the twentieth century. He is also a translator of Uyghur poetry, with translations published in more than a dozen journals. He received a master's degree in Uyghur literature at Xinjiang Normal University in Urumchi, capital of the Uyghur region, and a PhD in Inner Asian and Altaic Studies at Harvard University.
Muyesser Hendan
Anatil Mektep (Mother Tongue School)
Muyesser Abdul’ehed Hendan is a poet, writer and educator. A native of Ghulja in the north of East Turkistan, Hendan completed a medical degree at Beijing University, followed by a master’s in University of Malaya. After relocating to Turkey in 2013, she resolved to focus on writing and teaching Uighur language. Her debut novel, Kheyr-khosh, quyash (Farewell, Sun) is the first work of fiction to focus on the internment camps in East Turkistan.
Gulnigar Naman
Gulnigar Naman is a Uyghur acrobat, dancer, and performer currently living in Norway. She performed on Norske Talenter (Norway’s Got Talent) in 2014.
Hassan Mahmud
Uyghur guitarist/vocalist Hassan Mahmud began performing music in the streets of Shanghai when he was youngster. He currently lives in Spain and is creating music in the electronic duo Dinner for 7.
Hesher
Hesher is an electronic musician based in France. Hesher composed the theme music for WEghur Stories.
Gulnar Eziz
Harvard University Faculty Homepage
Dr. Gulnar Eziz is an linguistic anthropologist who teachers Uyghur and Chaghatay at Harvard. She previously participated in an effort to document and translate a trove of Uyghur manuscripts at the Lund University Library.
Alexandre Papas
More information about Alexandre Papas
Alexandre Papas is a historian of Islam and Central Asia. His work deals mainly with Sufi mysticism, saint veneration, and politico-religious issues in Central Asia and the neighboring areas (China, Tibet, and Northern India) from the 16th century to present. He is a senior research fellow at CNRS.