With the restoration of my old ID number, the previous six years of my life, including the three years I spent in prison, became a numberless life. In truth, this was a blessing for me. I believe that the record of my punishment and imprisonment had been wiped from the police system. Networked computers had not yet been widely adopted.

The true story of how a Uyghur poet and film director narrowly managed to escape a genocide—and of the friends and family that he left behind.