By Risalet Merdan
(Translated by Aziz Isa Elkun)
From “Uyghur Poems” (Everyman’s Library), a new collection spanning the 2000-year cultural legacy of the Uyghur people of Central Asia, edited and translated by Aziz Isa Elkun.
Risalet Merdan is a prominent Uyghur poet and literary translator, born in Tarati in the Qomul region in 1970. She works as a teacher in Chira County, Uyghuristan, China.
Aziz Isa Elkun is a poet and academic born in Uyghuristan in 1970. On graduating from Urumchi University in 1991, he was persecuted by the Chinese authorities because of his student political activities. He arrived in the UK as a political refugee in 2001, studied at Birkbeck and now works as a researcher at SOAS. He is a member of the English PEN.
