Perhat Tursun (Atush, 1969) is a leading Uyghur writer, poet and social critic from the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region. He has published many short stories and poems, as well as three novels, including the controversial 1999 novel The Art of Suicide , which was denounced as anti-Islamic. In 2018, he was arrested by Chinese authorities and reportedly sentenced to sixteen years in prison.