Emily Feng Our Hearts Burned for Home

What drove a few thousand men from the deserts of western China to the front lines of Syria's war? In Our Hearts Burned for Home , journalist Emily Feng unearths the untold story of Uyghur exiles who fled China's expanding police state--only to become a pivotal force in the fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime. At the heart of this narrative is a startling paradox: Beijing's repression, meant to crush dissent, instead scattered and radicalized a generation. Tracing the journey from the crushed student protests of 1990s Xinjiang to the Islamist battlegrounds of Idlib, this book reveals how a campaign of surveillance and cultural erasure helped give rise to a Uyghur militant movement far from home. Through vivid reporting and rare access to fighters and families, Feng explores how these men became both victims and agents of global jihad--and how their stateless revolution now shapes Syria's fragile future.