No Escape by Nury Turkel. This book is extraordinary – written by a man who was born in a Uyghur “re-education” camp during the Cultural Revolution, about the plight of the Uyghur people living in Xinjiang Province in Northwest China and much of it is simply unbelievable. 

The area has been turned into a huge open prison and while it’s believed there are around 3 million people living inside the actual camps, life’s not much better for those outside. China has set up the most repressive surveillance state the world has ever seen and there is constant monitoring and persecution of the inhabitants – who are labelled as potential religious extremists and a threat to the Communist Party’s authority. The book is full of first-hand accounts and interviews with Uyghur people who’ve managed to get out and it’s chilling – China denies it all of course but you read this and you know it has to be true. I’ve got loads of examples but will just give you this one: at 8am every Monday morning there’s a flag raising ceremony at which attendance is compulsory. The temperature can get to minus 40 but head coverings aren’t allowed because they could be a sign of religious devotion. They have an attendance booklet which needs to be stamped and if you go below 90%, you can be sent off to a re-education camp. 

  

The Improbable Life of Ricky Bird by Diane Connell. Fiction. Ricky Bird is a 12-year-old tomboy who escapes into stories when her real life is turned upside down. Her parents have divorced and she moves with her mother into a London council flat, where she draws unwanted attention from her mum’s new boyfriend. Meanwhile, her young brother Ollie has become terribly sick, and her mum is too distracted by the anxieties of that to notice what is happening to her daughter. It’s been recommended as a book for people who loved The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night Time, and Eleanor Oliphant is Completely Fine – seems to fit right in there with the very, very long title genre! 

Joan MacKenzie joined Francesca Rudkin.

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