The Wild Pigeon: Rejection of a Cage Life

Uyghur writer Nurmuhemmet Yasin’s poignant beast fable led to his imprisonment by the Chinese government on charges of inciting separatism.

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Bloomington, Indiana

Uyghur writer Nurmuhemmet Yasin’s poignant beast fable led to his imprisonment by the Chinese government on charges of inciting separatism. The tale can be read as a political or environmental allegory, and values freedom and spirituality over domination and exploitation. The author has remained in prison since the story’s publication ten years ago: 2015 was to have been the year of his release, but rights organizations have been unable either to determine his status or to confirm or deny rumors that he died in captivity. Michael Perry makes his Books Unbound debut reading “The Wild Pigeon.”

The episode concludes with Yasin’s essay “What Is Love?” Written before his imprisonment, the essay is influenced by the Lebanese-American writer Kahlil Gibran. Heather Perry reads.

The writings of Nurmuhemmet Yasin were translated from Uyghur by Dolkun Kamberi and published by Radio Free Asia in the e-book Caged.

The Uyghurs are a Turkic people who mainly practice a moderate form of Sunni Islam. They live in the oil-rich Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of western China, where conflicts with Han Chinese have been exacerbated by economic inequalities. Uyghurs maintain that they are subjected to religious oppression and ethnic discrimination. Chinese authorities regard the conflict as a battle against religious extremism and terrorism.

The episode includes a short feature on other writers under Chinese rule arrested for political expression. The most high-profile Uyghur intellectual currently imprisoned is Ilham Tohti, the economist and college professor whose outspoken daughter Jewher Ilham attends Indiana University. Widely regarded as a moderate and a voice for social harmony, Ilham Tohti was convicted of separatism and sentenced to life in prison. In the summer of 2015, China was the “guest of honor” at BookExpo America, the U.S. publishing industry’s largest trade show. The PEN American Center organized a demonstration on the steps of the New York Public Library to call attention to the arrests of Ilham Tohti and other authors, including three poets featured in the Books Unbound episode “Storytellers of Immortality”: Tsering Woeser, Liu Xiaobo, and Liu Xia. We revisit the poetry of Liu Xia in a segment featuring readers Patsy Rahn and Yu-San Lai.

Special music comes from a performance of traditional Uyghur music by the Sanubar Ensemble at the Ninth International Mystic Music Festival in Konya, Turkey, in 2012, featuring vocalist Sanubar Tursun, and from the song “Kepterim (My Pigeon)” from their album Arzu: Songs of the Uyghurs. Additional music comes from “She Cleared the Air” and “Ungone” from the album Spaces and Spheres: Intuitive Music. featuring Markus Stockhausen, Tara Bouman, Stefano Scodanibbio, Fabrizio Ottaviucci, and Mark Nauseef. Books Unbound theme music by The Impossible Shapes. Sound effects from Freesound.org.

This episode was produced, written, and edited by Cynthia Wolfe, with assistance from Sarah Torbeck, who also hosts, and Heather Perry. Executive producer is Joe Crawford.

Image credit: Detail from the cover of Caged: The Writings of Nurmuhemmet Yasin,  illustrated by Brian Williamson.