A Stone Is Most Precious Where it Belongs

This extraordinary memoir shares an insight into the lives of the Uyghurs, a people and culture being systematically destroyed by China—and a woman who gave up everything to help her people.

• "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 of the Uyghur people in China. Gulchera 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 Gulchera Hoja an enormous debt of gratitude to bear witness and share this horrifying story."
  Bill Browder, New York Times bestselling author of Red Notice
• “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—humor and humility, pain and love and faith.”
  Sophie Richardson, China Director at Human Rights Watch
• "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."
  Nury Turkel, author of No Escape: The True Story of China’s Genocide of the Uyghurs
• “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.”
  Kirkus Reviews
• "Gulchera 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 Gulchera'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 valor shine through like a beacon of light. This book will make each reader want to live a life of greater purpose."
  Dr. Katrina Lantos Swett, president, Lantos Foundation, past Chair, US Commission on International Religious Freedom
• "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."
  Peter Oborne, journalist and author of The Fate of Abraham: Why the West is Wrong About Islam