Where the River Dies
The Tragic Story of the Uyghurs in China
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Pub Date Jan 26 2027 | Archive Date Dec 31 2026
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Description
A veteran journalist’s sweeping history of a rich and resilient culture on the brink.
China’s repression of the Uyghurs dominated headlines in the late 2010s, with reports of a vast network of “reeducation” camps provoking condemnation around the world. But since then, coverage of this human tragedy and how it unfolded has been limited, especially as China sharpens its tools of mass censorship and control.
Drawing on years of reporting and research, New York Times journalist Dan Martin takes readers through Xinjiang’s rugged mountain ranges and across the Tarim River, to vibrant desert oases that are home to one of the world’s most repressed peoples. Contextualized within the larger geopolitical story of the rise of the Chinese Communist Party, the Global War on Terror, and the complicated thousand-year history of the Uyghur people, Where the River Dies tells the cruel story of a rich and resilient culture on the brink of demise.
Interwoven into this grand narrative are vivid stories of ordinary Uyghurs: a prominent economist imprisoned for voicing dissent; Uyghur families forced to host Chinese families assigned to monitor them; whole communities without young men. Even-handed in his treatment of a deeply complicated story, Martin is clear-eyed about both the brutality of the Chinese state and the violent responses of some Uyghurs, caught up in endless cycles of repression, humiliation, and retaliation.
What is happening in Xinjiang is not occurring in isolation, nor will its consequences remain quarantined there. Products made by Uyghur forced labor feed into global supply chains, and China is exporting high-tech surveillance systems similar to those prototyped in Xinjiang to governments around the world. Beautifully written and deeply tragic, Where the River Dies is both a crucial testimony and a warning.
About the Author:
Dan Martin has reported across Asia since the early 1990s, including more than a decade in China, for The Wall Street Journal, Reuters, and Agence France-Presse. He is a senior Opinion editor at The New York Times, based in Seoul.
Advance Praise
"Dan Martin is uniquely placed to tell the epic story of the Uyghurs, and why their story is one of the most important in China today." -Ian Johnson, Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and founder of the China Unofficial Archives
"A testament to the resilience, courage, and hope of the Uyghur people?key to understanding of one of the most significant human rights struggles of our time." -Jewher Ilham, author of Because I Have To: The Path to Survival, the Uyghur Struggle
"Sweeping, nuanced, and deeply unsettling. Where the River Dies offers one of the clearest and most compelling accounts of the tragedy that has befallen the Uyghur people. It deserves to be widely read." -Tahir Hamut Izgil, author of Waiting to Be Arrested at Night
"It is extremely difficult to recount the history of the Uyghur people because the Chinese government has so tightly sealed off access to Xinjiang, but journalist Dan Martin brings to life some of the region’s most troubling developments over the past several decades. Propulsive, engrossing, and heartbreaking." -Leta Hong Fincher, author of Leftover Women
"A devastating and necessary book. Dan Martin turns one of the world’s most censored stories into a gripping human history. Where the River Dies is beautifully written, morally urgent, and indispensable for understanding not only Xinjiang, but the authoritarian future China is trying to build." -Michael Beckley, co-author of Danger Zone
"Not only documents the suffering of the Uyghur people but also confronts readers with uncomfortable questions about the moral failures of our age. Where the River Dies is a powerful, deeply human, and profoundly necessary work. May it help ensure that the world never again has the luxury of saying, ‘We did not know.'" -Wu’er Kaixi, Uyghur activist and Tiananmen Square protest leader
"More than anything else I've read about the Uyghurs, Dan Martin shows how the Chinese government has perfected its techniques of surveillance and intimidation to make it nearly impossible for journalists to cover the story. But Martin nonetheless persevered and succeeded. Where the River Dies is a beautifully written, lively and eminently readable account of recent Uyghur history, at once empathetic and unsparing." -Barbara Demick, author of Eat the Buddha: Life and Death in a Tibetan Town
Available Editions
| EDITION | Hardcover |
| ISBN | 9781324134596 |
| PRICE | $29.99 (USD) |
| PAGES | 256 |