Update: Since recording episode one of our Empty Chair podcast, we have been alerted to reliable information that Chimengül Awut has been  released. We celebrate her freedom.

In the inaugural episode of The Empty Chair, three wonderful South African writers Terry-Ann Adams, Siphokazi Jonas and Megan Ross are in conversation with Nadia Davids, president of PEN South Africa. They reflect on precarity, creativity and resilience during the Covid-19 pandemic and share a message of solidarity with Chimengül Awut, an editor and award-winning Uyghur-language poet who has been imprisoned without charge in a “re-education” camp in China.