Canbury to publish book by survivor of Chinese 're-education' camps
Posted on January 11 2022
6th January 2022
Canbury Press, the non-fiction specialist based in London, is to publish the first memoir by a Uyghur survivor of China’s notorious network of ‘re-education’ camps.
Canbury has non-US World English rights to How I Survived a Chinese ‘Re-education’ Camp by Gulbahar Haitiwaji, a member of the Uyghur ethnic minority, and Rozenn Morgat, a journalist with Le Figaro.
It tells the real story of the lead author, who vanished for three years in China’s western desert after being tricked into leaving her adopted France. She was subjected to a prison regime of daily brainwashing, given memory-eroding pills and forcibly sterilized.
Her book gives both a powerful personal narrative and the bigger picture about what is happening to the mostly Muslim Uyghur people in China’s border province of Xinjiang.
Since 2017, one million Uyghurs have been interned, in what Beijing says is a crackdown on Islamic extremism. As part of a campaign of ethnic persecution, it has bulldozed mosques, banned prayer, forcibly sterilized women, and used facial recognition software to surveil the entire population, including installing CCTV in private homes.
The US officially categorises China’s treatment of the Uyghurs as a “genocide”. The US, the UK, Canada and Australia are staging a diplomatic boycott of the Beijing Winter Games, which begin on 4th February, in protest at China’s human rights violations.
Canbury Press is urging the book trade to enjoy its right to freedom of expression and back How I Survived a Chinese ‘Re-education’ Camp, which will be published on 3rd February. It was published in France under the title Rescapée du Goulag Chinois (Survivor of the Chinese Gulag). A publicity campaign will accompany its worldwide release.
Martin Hickman, MD of Canbury, said: “Whatever you think of the way we are governed in Britain, and the West, we are hugely fortunate to live in a free society. The Uyghurs in China aren’t so lucky. One of the world’s superpowers is using a variety of tactics, including the latest DNA technology and a covert network of remote jails, to wipe an entire culture off the face of the Earth.
“Gulbahar’s gripping and intimate memoir reveals a compelling human angle to this global issue. It is the story of what happens when an authoritarian state decides to crush an ordinary woman – and how she fights back. With its secret police and jails and pervasive surveillance, it reads like a 21st Century version of 1984.”
BIBLIO FACTS
Title: How I Survived a Chinese ‘Re-education’ Camp
Subtitle: A Uyghur Woman’s Story
Authors: Gulbahar Haitiwaji and Rozenn Morgat
Translator: Edward Gauvin
Publisher: Canbury Press
Publication Date: 3rd February 2022
Pagination: 256
Format: Hardback /Ebook
Price: £18.99
Hardcover ISBN: 9781912454907
Print distributor: Simon & Schuster
FURTHER INFORMATION
1. China's treatment of Uighurs amounts to torture, says Dominic Raab
2. China committed genocide against Uyghurs, independent tribunal rules
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-59595952
3. U.S. Says China’s Repression of Uighurs Is ‘Genocide’
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/19/us/politics/trump-china-xinjiang.html
4. UK and Canada join diplomatic boycott of China Winter Olympics
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-59582137
CONTACT
Publicist Rahel Araya: rahelarayapublicity@gmail.com