Tahir Hamut Izgil

Izgil was born in a small town near Kashgar, Xinjiang and grew up in the city. Izgil was one of the first Uyghur poets to receive a fully bilingual education - in both Uyghur and Mandarin. When he arrived at college, he and his fellow students from Xinjiang, including now-noted poet Perhat Tursun, knew little Chinese. They quickly formed a study group and began reading Western philosophy, theory and criticism: existentialist philosophers, the European modernists, American Gothic fiction and critical theory. They also read contemporary Chinese literature: the Misty Poets and experimental Chinese fiction writers. Izgil was particularly drawn to modernist literary criticism, and became one of the premier Uyghur critics of Western modernism. He published his first poem in 1986. == Poetry ==

Upon returning to the Uyghur region in the early 1990s, Tursun and Izgil started publishing their avant-garde poetry and attracted a following. Many of his poems have been said to be "filled with longing and exhaustion, enchantment and release." The group's work revealed the "uncertainty of their religiosity". His poems have also been translated into Chinese, Japanese, Turkish, Swedish, French, and other languages. He states that his exile has disrupted his poetic practice - he feels that he doesn't have the same poetic inspiration and writes fewer poems. Izgil was invited to give poetry reading nights at Indiana University in 2016, the University of Washington in 2018, and Yale University in 2020. == Filmmaking ==

In 1998, he forayed into filmmaking and eventually directed a groundbreaking drama, The Moon Is a Witness. Since 2005, he has turned to filming narrative documentaries and lyric poetry. He filmed a selection of Kucha folk songs and compiled them into a single DVD called Mirajikhan. In the 2010s, he worked as one of the principal instructors in the Film Department of the Xinjiang Arts Institute in Ürümqi. == Exile ==

In the mid-1990s, Izgil was detained in a labor camp for three years for carrying allegedly sensitive documents, including newspaper articles about Uyghur separatist attacks, on an attempted trip to study in Turkey. Later, he was blacklisted for jobs. In August 2017, as the Chinese government began its mass internment of Uyghurs, he fled with his family to northern Virginia, where he currently lives. Izgil says distrust among Uyghurs abroad, many of whom suspect others spy for Beijing, has greatly reduced attendance to his poetry readings in the US. After arriving in the US, he had a son in November 2019. == Activism ==

Izgil has been active in speaking out against persecution against Uyghurs by the Chinese government. He gave a speech at US State Department’s "Ministerial to Advance Religious Freedom", an event focused on addressing religious persecution around the world. Tahir Hamut Izgil was chosen to be their leader. Izgil is now a film producer at Radio Free Asia, which has been active in documenting China's persecution of the Uyghurs. == Selected bibliography ==

• Western Modernist Literary Thought (Written in Uyghur, 2000, Xinjiang People’s Publishing House) == Selected filmography ==

• The Moon Is a Witness (TV feature, 1999) • Dark Mountain (TV feature, 2001) • A Wistful Village Song (TV feature, 2003) • Family Anecdotes (TV short, 2005) • A Celebration of Hope: Nauroz Festival (Documentary short, 2011) • An Old Passion, Meshrep (Documentary short, 2012) • Qurban Eid in Photos (Documentary short, 2013) • Kashgar Story (TV series, 2016) == Awards and honors ==

• 2023 – John Leonard Prize for Best First Book, awarded by the National Book Critics Circle, for Waiting to Be Arrested at Night. • 2024 – Moore Prize for Human Rights Writing. • 2024 – Václav Havel International Prize for Creative Dissent. • 2024 – Swedish Cikada Prize for Poetry . • 2025 – PEN Català Veu Lliure Prize (Free Voice Prize). == References ==