Apr 3,
2007
Redding
Author, human
rights advocate coming to library
| by
MADELINE LESLIE
Acclaimed author and human rights advocate
Talia Carner will talk about the horrors of female infanticide in
China as part of her discussion of her recent book, China Doll, on
Thursday, April 12, at 7:30 p.m. at the Mark Twain Library.
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| The event
is open to the public free of charge. Those interested in attending
are encouraged to call the library at 938-2545 to reserve a seat.
Ms. Carner will sign copies of her book after her talk.
China
Doll is the fictional tale of an American pop icon on tour in China
when a baby is thrust into her arms. The protagonist resolves to
save the baby from certain death in the dumping grounds of Chinese
orphanages, only to find herself on a collision course with the
world’s two superpowers determined to silence her.
Critics
have praised China Doll as a “spicy, worldly and meticulously
researched adventure” that “begins with passion and ends with
victory.”
Ms. Carner’s involvement with women’s
organizations led to her participation at the 1995 International
Women’s conference in Beijing, where she learned of the atrocities
of the Dying Rooms, the Chinese orphanages where the documented
death rate was 80%. Ms. Carner’s research for China Doll included
interviewing offices of the U.S. National Security Administration,
State Department, CIA, Chinese female university professors, aging
peasants and budding entrepreneurs. She learned how, generation
after generation, due to either starvation, the social experiments
of the cultural revolution, or the current one-child policy, women
have been losing their baby girls through coercion, prejudice,
neglect, and outright murder.
Ms. Carner addressed the U.N.
Committee on the Status of Women on the subject of infanticide in
February 2007. “The issue of China’s infanticide will not go away in
the near future,” Ms. Carner said. “As it forges ahead with full
steam, the Chinese government admits that it cannot ‘waste’
resources on the weakest among its citizens. Nor is it within its
tradition to cater to individuals’ needs. But then, in the
juxtaposition of American corporations’ operations in cynical China,
our Western values are eroded and compromised.”
Ms. Carner’s
first novel, Puppet Child, was listed in The Top 10 Favorite First
Novels 2002 and won her an Outstanding Author Award. The book
initiated The Protective Parent Reform Act, a law now passed or
under consideration in more than a dozen states. Ms. Carner is
hailed as one with “the power to bring change in
society.”
Before becoming a fiction writer, Talia Carner was
the publisher of Savvy Woman magazine and a marketing consultant to
Fortune 500 companies. A former adjunct professor at Long Island
University and a lecturer for the Small Business Administration, she
was as member of United States Information Agency missions to
Russia.
A seventh generation Sabra born in Tel Aviv, Israel,
Ms. Carner served in the 1967 Six Day War before coming to the
United States in 1974. She received a bachelor’s degree from Hebrew
University in Jerusalem in psychology and sociology and a master’s
degree in economics from the State University of New York at Stony
Brook. Ms. Carner and her husband, Ron, have four grown children.
The couple lives in Bridgehampton, N.Y., and
Manhattan.
© Copyright 2007 by Hersam
Acorn Newspapers
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