Poet · Philosopher · Guide of the Soul
ئەخمەتجان ئوسمان
“watching grass sprout from cracks in the asphalt”
ئاسفالت يېرىقلىرىدىن چىملارنىڭ ئۈنۈشىنى كۆزەتكەچ
from “The Nights Passing Endlessly through Scheherazade’s Mouth” · trans. Joshua L. Freeman
A master who writes, speaks, and teaches across Uyghur, Arabic, English, Turkish, and Chinese — illuminating the human essence and guiding us to find our true souls. A lifelong patriot, he has devoted his voice to the freedom of East Turkistan and a more just future for the Uyghur Nation.
Ahmatjan Osman.
I. The Master
ئالىم
Born in 1964 in Ürümqi, Ahmatjan Osman — whose name is also written Ekhmetjan or Exmetjan Osman — grew up between the city's edges and a wide emptiness where, as he recalled, “the only things that connected me to the outside world were the Sun, Moon and stars.” His mother sang him folk poetry; by thirteen, his verses were read on the radio. He would become the foremost Uyghur poet of his generation and the leader of its New Poetry movement.
Yet his reach has never stopped at one language. Studying in Damascus, he mastered Arabic so completely that the great poet Adonis became an admirer; his work now lives in English translation, and his spoken dialogues move freely through Turkish and Chinese. He has translated Rumi, Octavio Paz, Paul Celan, Fernando Pessoa, and Adonis into Uyghur. Across all of them, one subject remains: the human essence, and the soul's long road home.
He has never separated the poet from the patriot. Through years of exile — and through his work as a writer and broadcaster — he has given his voice to the cause of his homeland: speaking against the oppression of the Uyghur Nation and for the freedom and dignity of East Turkistan. For him, the defense of a people and the defense of the human soul are the same labor. From November 2015 to October 2018 he served as the third President of the East Turkistan Government in Exile — a documented public role that placed the poet, for a time, at the head of his people's struggle for self-determination.
Today he lives in Toronto, where he writes in English, Uyghur, and Arabic. There he is less a distant literary figure than a living teacher. In his ongoing dialogues he gathers listeners around a single question — how to become who we truly are — and answers it the way a poet does: with presence, tenderness, and unflinching honesty.
ئۇيغۇرچە
Uyghur
Mother tongue · the homeland of his poetry
العربية
Arabic
Six collections · admired by Adonis
English
English
Writes today · international readership
Türkçe
Turkish
Dialogue · kinship of the Turkic world
中文
Chinese
Conversation · bridge across cultures
II. In Other Voices
باشقىلارنىڭ تىلىدا
Lines left by publishers, magazines, anthologies, and fellow poets — each carried back to the page that first set it down.
“She names Ahmatjan Osman — in the same breath as Mallarmé, Ibn Arabi, and Rumi — among the poets who inspire her own work.”
Fatimah Abdulghafur Seyyah
Uyghur poet & translator of Osman · reported in the New Statesman, 2022
“The foremost Uyghur poet of his generation, he channels his ancestors alongside Mallarmé and Rimbaud to capture the sacred and philosophical, the ineffable and the transient.”
Phoneme Media
Publisher of Uyghurland, the Farthest Exile
“His poems hold the rebellion of Shah Meshrep, the refined language of Nawayi, the lament of Abdukhaliq Uyghur, and the precision of Sadir Palwan.”
Memtimin Ela
From his introduction to Ahmatjan Osman: Selected Poems, 2015
“Among the most influential Uyghur poets of his generation, and founder of the New Poetry movement that emerged in Uyghur literary circles in the 1980s.”
Granta
Magazine of new writing
“The wolf of life begins to howl each time I take you in my arms.”
From a ghazal in Uyghur Poems
ed. Aziz Isa Elkun · Everyman’s Library, 2023
“In fifty years our language will be… — I am talking to the Uyghur poet Ahmatjan Osman as he drives on a highway in Toronto.”
Jeffrey Yang
Poet & translator, in “The Mask of the Translator”
“One of the foremost Uyghur poets of his generation — a vital voice carried into English for the first time.”
Words Without Borders
Premier home of world literature in translation
“Having not written poetry in fifteen years, he presented four new poems — in both Uyghur and English — of powerful, luminous imagery.”
PEN Sydney
On “Tales of the Wind: A Night of Uyghur Poetry,” 2023
Quotations are reproduced from their original publishers and outlets; follow each card to its source.
III. The Teaching
تەلىمات
For Osman, poetry is not decoration but a way of seeing. His teaching gathers a lifetime of exile, language, and longing into a path anyone can walk — inward, toward the soul.
Beneath nation, language, and exile lies a single human essence. Osman's work returns again and again to what is most ancient and most shared in us — the soul that precedes every border.
He gathers science and religion, literature and history, poetry, culture, and mysticism into a single unity — drawing not on one faith but on many. In his vision the disciplines and traditions are not rivals but facets of one truth, and the poet's work is to hold them together in a single, limitless whole.
“The Uyghur language is my real homeland as a poet.” To follow him across five languages is to learn that words are not tools but dwellings — places where the self can finally rest.
He turns the wound of exile into a path inward. To lose a country, he teaches, is to be sent in search of the only homeland that cannot be taken: the true soul.
He draws a sharp line between the self and the soul. The self is the selfish ego; the soul is the truth that lives in every human being. In his ongoing dialogues — “This Is How I See It” — he teaches that all is one, and that the presence of the self is the enemy of unity and of being limitless.
His patriotism is inseparable from his philosophy. To speak for the freedom of East Turkistan and the dignity of the Uyghur Nation is, for Osman, to defend the human essence itself — the right of every soul to live, remember, and speak in its own voice.
IV. Listen
ئاڭلاڭ
Beyond the page, Osman teaches through dialogue. In these recorded conversations and readings he speaks on love, independence, the soul, and the art of becoming oneself.
“This Is How I See It” · Ahmatjan Osman & Fatima Sayyah
“This Is How I See It” · episode 30
V. The Work
شېئىرلار
A gathering of poems the poet shared himself, written directly in English — brief meditations on being, silence, exile, and the soul — alongside verse translated from his Uyghur and Arabic in Uyghurland, the Farthest Exile.
It is that
that WHICH in every direction
in everywhere…
yet it doesn’t take the direction
or the place of anything
It is a pronoun without a noun
yet it is the origin of every name
No one can define it
nor can it define itself
for it has no self
What is it?
No one knows!
yet it is the source of all knowledge
Posted by the poet · @AhmatjanO, Apr 4, 2021
Straw is worthless when it is a straw
When it burns, it is the fire we used to worship
Straw is profane as smoke and ash
yet it’s sacred as light and warmth
It burns to be
in the Being
It sacrifices for the profane and sacred
The light passes, so does the warmth
Smoke and ash remains…
Posted by the poet · @AhmatjanO, Apr 3, 2021
Flight is a thought of bird —
this is what the twig recalls
as I twigged looking up at the sky what I am
I am the near tree, the distant space,
and the bird in between
Posted by the poet · @AhmatjanO
Just as a painter makes us touch
what cannot be touched
with his colors
the light and the shadow…
just as a poet makes us feel
what cannot be felt
with his words
the self and the silence…
just as a bird makes us perceive
what cannot be perceived
with its flight
the sky…
When the truth is among us
we are capable of reflection or burning
Posted by the poet · @AhmatjanO, Mar 31, 2021
Don’t let your feet leave the ground
let your head touch the sky
Mother said after completing her story
This is the whole story
After my lifetime is almost over
and here I am:
the light wades in the mud
Posted by the poet · @AhmatjanO
i am alone
this is my memory
i have nothing else
i remember that i am restless
i want to be
— what do you want, restless memory?
— i want to stop being a memory!
but you are alone
remembering and restless
whoever you are
you are that —
the beingless being
Posted by the poet · @AhmatjanO
Each morning
The paths come out from their dens
To hunt me
I am a strange beast
Questions spring up from my footstep
Translated by Fatimah Abdulghafur Seyyah
Posted by the poet · @AhmatjanO
Counting the fingers from one to ten
Spelling the letters from A to Z
Measuring the distance between two suns
One in a drop of water, another in the sky
Man is a prisoner in the solitary self
There is a bird crosses the roadside window
And the watchful eyes on a tree
Posted by the poet · @AhmatjanO
Alone is the stone
Silence made it an introvert
Alone is the bird
Silence made it fly
Only the silence alone
Nothing makes it introverted
Nothing makes it flying
Posted by the poet · @AhmatjanO
Once upon a time
Fear and Hope were the sons of man
Hope murdered Fear, and man was happy
Happiness was the ghost of Fear, but man did not know
Man’s ignorance wreaked havoc on himself
Posted by the poet · @AhmatjanO, Mar 16, 2021
Since every speech being a thought
Comes the time of universal language
It is the language from soul to soul,
Rimbaud said.
He meant the gods
the interconnectedness of Gardens.
Posted by the poet · @AhmatjanO, Mar 10, 2021
A shining dewdrop settled on my cheek
Said I:
Brother, I’m no flower!
Said the dewdrop:
Why would I bother
coming here at dawn
if you did not long for your homeland?
Translated by Joshua L. Freeman · Calligraphy by Efvan
Posted by the poet · @AhmatjanO
1 · Dream
When the moon floated far from childhood
there was a dream that never grew up
Deaf, dumb, blind it soared
upon millions of wings
toward the graveyard of my ancestors
a graveyard whose name I later learned
when older: Earth
2 · Mourning
When the moon floated far from childhood
I stole it and hid it inside my pencil case
The old darkness was awakened
and slipped out to the deaf roads
calling in a mournful voice,
O my grandson where are you my moon…?
3 · Art Dealer
When the moon floated far from childhood
I measured the sun by days
and the days by dreams
I saw the night on the sidewalk
sitting cross-legged in front of a pile
of moons and stars for sale
4 · The Fisherman and the Golden Fish
When the moon floated far from childhood
the night became the starry sea
and the moonlight golden fish
The horizon hunted the fish each morning
and returned them to the sea at dusk
5 · Sadness
When the moon floated far from childhood
I cried…
Mother wiped my tears away with a laugh
as I told her how the moon
started to drown in the waves of clouds
and so I threw out my arms
to save it from vanishing
6 · God’s Pupil
When the moon floated far from childhood
I was sitting at the edge of nothingness
Grandfather whispered to my parents
that I was sitting in God’s pupil
so it didn’t matter
if His eyes were open or closed
7 · Night’s Presence
When the moon floated far from childhood
it was so tired that it fell asleep on a cloud
Long before morning it had a bad dream
and tumbled to the ground
in that moment the night’s presence
woke my heart
8 · Escape with the Earth
When the moon floated far from childhood
the rainbow tried so hard
to carry Earth between its arms
and all day I wondered
where was it planning to escape with the Earth?!
9 · Knot
When the moon floated far from childhood
the sun had barely risen
and sea said to land,
“What if, my friend, we tied a knot
between the colorblind moon
and the forgetful sun?”
10 · Metaphysical Questions
When the moon floated far from childhood
the wind rested on the roof beside me,
whispering: Where did it begin?
Where will it end? What does it want?
11 · Language Practice
When the moon floated far from childhood
I tripped over the night
but the moon still pulled me back
the same way the sun held me up
whenever I stumbled over the day
12 · Small Window
When the moon floated far from childhood
through a small window
I watched a dream leave the night behind
It was morning and I saw my father
returned from the war
lying in a pool of his own blood
Then my small window shattered
13 · Waiting
When the moon floated far from childhood
I wanted to pluck the stars from the sky
I stayed up the long night waiting
and the moon never shut its eyes to sleep
14 · Moonlit Speech
When the moon floated far from childhood
it vanished—
the stars trembled in the darkness
my heart climbed high into the sky
so that my share of the night
reflected its silver light
ذات قمر نأى في الطفولة
١ · حلم
ذات قمر نأى في الطفولة...
كان ثمة حلم
لا يكبر
أصم، أبكم، أعمى
يرفرف هناك بملايين الأجنحة
على جبانة أجدادي
التي عرفت اسمها لما كبرت:
الكرة الأرضية
٢ · شقاوة
ذات مساء نأى في الطفولة...
سرقت القمر
وخبأته داخل مقلمتي
استيقظت العتمة العجوز
ثم خرجت إلى الطرقات الخرساء
وهي تنادي بصوتها الباكي:
- يا حفيدي!
أين أنت يا قمري...؟!
٣ · تاجر عاديات
ذات صباح نأى في الطفولة...
وأنا أقيس الشمس بالنهار
والنهار بالأحلام
رأيت الليل على الرصيف
يجلس القرفصاء
وأمامه «بسطة» من الأقمار والنجوم
٤ · الصياد والسمكة الذهبية
ذات حلم مؤجل في الطفولة...
كان الليل بحراً مقمراً
والقمر سمكة ذهبية
وكان الأفق يصطادها كل فجر
ثم يعيدها إلى البحر من جديد
كل غسق
٥ · حزن
ذات حزن مؤجل في الطفولة...
كم بكيت
ودمعي تكفكفه أمي
وهي تقهقه بملء شدقيها
وأنا أخبرها كيف أن القمر
اختفى غارقاً في أمواج الغيوم
وأني
كنت أمد كلتا ذراعيّ
لإنقاذه
٦ · بؤبؤ الله
ذات قمر نأى في الطفولة...
كنت جالساً على حافة الشرود
حين وشوش جدي والديّ
بأني جالس في بؤبؤ الله
فلا هم إن كانت عيونه
مفتوحة
أو مغمضة
٧ · الإحساس بالليل
ذات حداد مؤجل في الطفولة...
غفا القمر المتعب
مستلقياً على الغمام
ثم هوى قبيل الفجر إلى الأرض
من فرط الكابوس
حينئذ
استيقظ في قلبي
الإحساس بالليل
٨ · الهروب بالأرض
ذات مطر نأى في الطفولة...
حاول جاهداً قوس القزح
أن يحمل الأرض بين ذراعيه
يومها
تساءلت طويلاً:
ترى، إلى أين كان ينوي
أن يهرب بها؟!
٩ · عقد قران
ذات خاطر مؤجل في الطفولة...
أسرّ البحر لليابسة
ساعة السحر:
ماذا لو، عزيزتي، عقدنا القران
بين القمر السقيم بعمى الألوان
والشمس المصابة
بفقدان الذاكرة؟
١٠ · تساؤلات ميتافيزيقية
ذات غسق نأى في الطفولة...
استلقت الريح على السطح
بجانبي...
كانت غارقة في التفكير:
أين ابتدأت؟
أين ستنتهي؟
ماذا تريد؟...
١١ · تدريب لغوي
ذات درب نأى في الطفولة...
كان القمر يسند قامتي
كلما سقطت على الليل
كما كانت تسندني الشمس
كلما تعثرت بالنهار
١٢ · نافذة صغيرة
ذات ربيع نأى في الطفولة...
كان لي نافذة صغيرة
كنت أشاهد منها في الصباح
حلماً غادرني في الليل
مرة
لمحت أبي عائداً من الحرب
متدثراً بنعشه
فتحطمت آنذاك
نافذتي الصغيرة
١٣ · انتظار
ذات فرح مؤجل في الطفولة...
أردت أن ألم النجوم
من السماء
لكم بقيت ليلتها منتظراً
فما كان يغمض القمر جفنيه
ويغفو
١٤ · كلام مقمر
ذات خوف مؤجل في الطفولة...
اختفى القمر
وكانت النجوم ترتعد في الظلام
صعد قلبي أعالي السماء
فكانت حصتي من الليل
أكثر إقماراً
Translated from the Uyghur & Arabic by Jeffrey Yang with the author
From Uyghurland, the Farthest Exile · also in Technicians of the Sacred (3rd ed.)
VI. The Books
ئەسەرلەر
Translated by Jeffrey Yang with the author. The first collection of Uyghur poetry ever translated into English; long-listed for the 2016 PEN Award for Poetry in Translation.
Read & OrderThe Second Fall
Al-Suqût al-thânî
1988
Arabic
The Mystery of Weddings
Lughz Al-a'araas
1990
Arabic
Ode to a Uyghur Girl
ئۇيغۇر قىزى لېرىكىسى
1992
Uyghur
Season of the Soul
روھ پەسلى
1996
Uyghur
Guardian of the Self
Al-wasiy Ala Al-thaat
1997
Arabic
As Though
Ka'an
1998
Arabic
In Ruins of Sumer Where I Reside
Fiy Atlaar Somar Haythu Oqiym
2003
Arabic
My Share of the Night
Hissaty Min Al-layl
2007
Arabic
Oh, Land of Uyghurs
ああ、ウイグルの大地
2015
Japanese translation
Uyghur Poet: Selected Poems of Ahmatjan Osman
ウイグルの詩人 アフメットジャン・オスマン選詩集
2015
Japanese translation
Selected Poems of Ahmatjan Osman
Ehmetjan Osman Tallanma She'irliri
2015
Uyghur
Poetry, What How
شېئىر نېمە، قانداق
2024
Uyghur
Edited by Jerome Rothenberg · University of California Press. The landmark global poetry anthology — a touchstone since 1968 — includes Osman’s “The Moons of Childhood,” placing his work among the world’s essential poetries.
“Ancestors,” translated from the Uyghur by Joshua L. Freeman, in the journal often regarded as the home of new international writing.
Edited by Aziz Isa Elkun · Alfred A. Knopf. The first English-language anthology of Uyghur poetry includes a ghazal by Osman — “the wolf of life begins to howl each time I take you in my arms.”
Slavs and Tatars · MIT Press. A book on Uyghur language, politics, and humor — departing from a 19th-century Uyghur satirical poem — that features his poetry.
Uzbekistan’s state-registered literary portal presents him — as “Ahmadjon Usmon” — among the notable voices of Uyghur modern poetry for Uzbek readers.
Edited by André Naffis-Sahely · Pushkin Press. An anthology of exile literature gathering his work among writers of displacement across centuries.
“The Nights Passing Endlessly through Scheherazade’s Mouth,” translated from the Uyghur by Joshua L. Freeman, in the September 2012 issue.
“Three Poems by Exmetjan Osman,” translated and introduced by Joshua L. Freeman — including “Sadir in Search of His Five Orphaned Children” (1986).
The exile poet Yang Lian translated “The Nights Passing Endlessly through Scheherazade’s Mouth” into Chinese and wrote an accompanying essay, published in his book 发出自己的天问 1978–2015 (Showwe Publishing, Taipei).
His Arabic poetry appeared in the pan-Arab daily (London), placing his voice within the wider Arabic literary world.
VII. The Movement
گۇڭگا شېئىرىيىتى
In the 1980s, Osman became the leading voice of gungga — meaning “hazy” or “misty” — the Uyghur New Poetry movement. It broke from the inherited metrical forms, turning instead to free verse, metaphor, and symbol, where a poem's title need not name its subject and meaning gathers like fog.
His poem “Treacherous Mountains,” published in the Ürümqi literary magazine Tengritagh, became a touchstone of the movement and sparked fierce debate about tradition and authenticity in Uyghur letters. Though the movement quieted after his exile, its influence runs through a later generation of Uyghur poets.
كۆك
In 2025, from exile in Toronto, Osman founded Kök — a movement born within the Uyghur diaspora. Returning to the ancient Book of Oghuz Khan, he reads its epic anew in the light of oneness and nothingness: not as a tale of conquest, but as a parable of the soul dissolving into the whole.
Kök calls for unity — the shedding of the selfish self and the turn toward a truly liberated soul, and a freer world. Within the diaspora it has struck a deep chord, hailed by readers as one of the newest and most meaningful movements in recent Uyghur history.
Constellations — his influences
VIII. The Journey
سۈرگۈن
Ürümqi
Born in Ürümqi, in the Uyghur homeland. His mother sang him folk poetry and told him Uyghur tales; the Sun, Moon, and stars, he said, “comprised my dream world.”
Ürümqi
Three of his poems are read on Ürümqi radio when he is thirteen — his first appearance before an audience.
Ürümqi
Becomes the leading voice of gungga (“hazy”) — the Uyghur New Poetry movement — turning Uyghur verse toward free form, metaphor, and modernism.
Damascus
Wins a scholarship to study Arabic literature at Damascus University, among the first Uyghur students abroad after the Cultural Revolution. Earns bachelor's and master's degrees and masters Arabic.
Ürümqi
Returns home to work as a journalist and write essays on literary theory.
Syria
After a two-month arrest, he flees to Syria. There the Syrian poet Adonis becomes an early admirer of his Arabic verse.
Exile
Deported from Syria under pressure; some 270 figures of the Arab poetry world, Adonis among them, sign a petition in his defense. Later that year he receives asylum in Canada.
Exile
Serves as the third President of the East Turkistan Government in Exile, carrying his lifelong devotion to his homeland into public office.
Toronto
He lives in Toronto, writing in English, Uyghur, and Arabic and guiding a global audience through his dialogues — speaking and teaching across five languages.
VIII. Press & News
خەۋەرلەر
Türkiye Yazarlar Birliği (TYB İstanbul)
Uygur Edebiyatına Adanmış Kırk Yıl — a tribute to Ahmatjan Osman's 60th birthday and forty years of poetry
PEN America / ArabLit
Translation from Uyghur and Arabic makes the PEN Poetry Award longlist
The China Project
Three Uyghur poems — continuity, exile, and struggle
Asymptote Journal
On translating Ahmatjan Osman from the Uyghur
Words Without Borders
The Nights Passing Endlessly Through Scheherezade's Mouth
Deep Vellum / Phoneme Media
Author page — Uyghurland, the Farthest Exile
Granta
Contributor: among the most influential Uyghur poets
East Turkistan Government in Exile
Served as the third President of the Government in Exile (2015–2018)
Media Resource
A printable dossier for journalists, editors, and prize committees — biography, fact sheet, selected poems, and a citation-ready bibliography in a single PDF.
X. Invite Him
تەكلىپ
Ahmatjan Osman reads, lectures, and teaches across five languages. To invite him for a reading, a talk, a workshop on poetry and the soul, or an interview, send a note — or reach him directly on social media.
He is available for public speeches, visiting lectures, and literary events worldwide.
Past appearances & recognition
A full-day tribute in Istanbul marking his 60th birthday and forty years of literary life, hosted by the Turkish Writers' Union (Türkiye Yazarlar Birliği, Istanbul) with the World Uyghur Writers Union. A morning of academic papers on his poetry was followed by tribute speeches, Uyghur music, a panel, and a book-signing, drawing diaspora poets from across the world.
PEN Sydney, at the Turkish Cultural Centre, Auburn. Joining via livestream from Canada, he was interviewed and read four new poems in Uyghur and English — his first new poems after a long pause.
Elected the third President of the East Turkistan Government-in-Exile, serving from November 2015 to October 2018.
Served as president of the World Uyghur Writers Union, the body that gathers Uyghur poets and writers in exile.
Uyghurland, the Farthest Exile (tr. Jeffrey Yang) was longlisted for the PEN Award for Poetry in Translation — the first book of Uyghur poetry ever rendered into English.
ئاسفالت يېرىقلىرىدىن چىملارنىڭ ئۈنۈشىنى كۆزەتكەچ
“watching grass sprout from cracks in the asphalt”
Ahmatjan Osman
from “The Nights Passing Endlessly through Scheherazade’s Mouth” · trans. Joshua L. Freeman