Aziz Isa Elkun

PRESS RELEASE:
Hertfordshire Press Announces the Publication of
Imprisoned Souls: Poems of Uyghur Prisoners in China

PRESS RELEASE

Hertfordshire Press Announces the Publication of Imprisoned Souls: Poems of Uyghur Prisoners in China. A landmark collection preserving the silenced voices of persecuted Uyghur poets.

London, UK – Hertfordshire Press (SRM Group), the UK’s leading publisher dedicated to translated literature from the post-Soviet space, proudly announces the release of Imprisoned Souls: Poems of Uyghur Prisoners in China, a powerful new anthology translated and compiled by acclaimed Uyghur poet, scholar, and human rights advocate Aziz Isa Elkun.

At a moment when Uyghur cultural expression faces systematic erasure, this collection brings together the voices of 25 poets who were detained, sentenced, or forcibly disappeared in China. Their works – ranging from lyrical meditations on nature to poignant reflections on identity, longing, and injustice – survive as rare testimonies of courage, humanity, and resistance.

About the Book

For Elkun, Imprisoned Souls is the culmination of over five years of emotionally demanding research and translation – a project driven by urgency, responsibility, and profound personal loss.

Cut off from his family since 2017 and witness to the disappearances of numerous colleagues and friends, Elkun has worked tirelessly to gather these poems from published sources and digital archives, overcoming the information blackout imposed on Uyghur cultural life.

In a deeply moving reflection accompanying the collection, he describes the psychological burden of exile, the grief of severed family ties, and his moral obligation to amplify the voices of the detained poets:

“The simple act of writing poems led to their persecution. Their precious works must not be lost to silence… I had to act, to bring these voices into the light.”

This anthology, he writes, captures “the soul of the Uyghur people” – their sorrow and resilience, their love and longing, and their unbroken hope for dignity, peace, and freedom.

The book is now available to order online:
https://amzn.eu/d/32x4ksy

About the Author

Aziz Isa Elkun is a London-based Uyghur poet, writer, translator, researcher, and prominent cultural advocate. Born in Shayar County in Uyghuristan/East Turkistan, he graduated from Xinjiang University before relocating to the UK in 2001.

His work spans poetry, fiction, documentary filmmaking, and academic research, including contributions to major projects at SOAS, University of London. Elkun is the author of numerous publications in both Uyghur and English, including the landmark Uyghur Poems anthology published by Everyman’s Library (Penguin Random House, 2023). Since April 2025, he has served as President of the Uyghur PEN Centre.

More about his work: www.azizisa.org/en

About Hertfordshire Press

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The Uyghur PEN Center held its official election on April 16, 2025, at the Mir Publishing House office in Almaty, Kazakhstan. In addition to local members attending in person, participants from around the world joined the event online. A total of 24 members took part in the meeting.

The session was chaired by Alisher Khalilov, head of the Executive Committee of the Uyghur PEN Center. Former president and artist Kaiser Ozhun opened the event with a report detailing the founding history of the Uyghur PEN Center and highlighting the accomplishments achieved during his tenure.

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Published by Bitter Winter Magazine on 21 June /2024

For an exiled poet, an apricot tree in London is a way of remembering his father and his youth in East Turkestan (China. Xinjiang).

by Aziz Isa Elkun
Edited by Ruth Ingram

Aziz Isa Elkun, UK-based exiled Uyghur poet in his London garden with a three year old apricot tree he has nurtured from a sapling to remind him of home.

One of my strongest childhood memories was following my father around our family orchard and closely watching him as he tended the trees. I helped him plant apricots from the age of six or seven. Our family owned a large tract of land in Xinjiang (also known as East Turkestan) north of the Tarim River, (south of Shayar County), the principal water source of the Tarim Basin that sweeps from the Karakoram Mountains in the West across the northern edge of the Taklimakan Desert to Lop Nur in the East.

My father had set his heart on growing a family orchard. I remember there being no water for the small apricot saplings after we planted them and I would follow my father, carrying a little bucket to bring water from the lake in the village to help the apricot and other trees grow.

I learned how to plant, graft, and look after fruit trees. We had one of the largest and most unique orchards in our neighbourhood. Everyone admired my father’s dedication as he struggled to grow fruit trees in the dry desert climate. He collected fruit trees for our garden from far and wide; even as far as Kucha, 65 kilometers to the north, and brought them home to grow. We had fig, pomegranate, apricot, pear, apple, peach, and hundred-meter-long vine trellises.

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