Abide Abbas Nesrin: I wrote a thousand verses and waited for one miracle
– Uyghur
Abide Abbas Nesrin is a Uyghur poetess who has lived in Istanbul since 2017. She is one of the most famous Uyghur exile poetesses and works as a Uyghur language teacher. She comes from Wätän (“Homeland”, East Turkestan), as Uyghurs call their homeland, rather than adopting the Chinese name Xinjiang. As a member of an ethnically and religiously persecuted group, she had to emigrate, while her peers ended up in Chinese re-education labour camps. Her collection Turna (Crane) was published in 2020 by the Istanbul-based Erguvan publishing house.