Perhat Tursun was born in 1969 in Atush, a small town of Uyghur traders near the Chinese border with Kyrgyzstan. He earned a BA in Turkology and Literature and an MA in Chaghatay Language at the Central University for Nationalities in Beijing. A poet, an essayist, a novelist, and a screenwriter, Perhat has worked as a folklore researcher at a government office in Ürümchi, Xinjiang’s capital city, since 1989. His work has appeared in Harper’s Ferry and The Harvard Advocate. A translation of his novel The Backstreets was published by Columbia University Press in 2022. He is one of the most-discussed authors in the Uyghur language today.