Award-Winning Internationally Bestselling Author
CHAMPION OF CHOICE
The Life and Legacy of Women's Advocate Nafis Sadik
NAMED ONE OF THE "TOP 10 BIOGRAPHIES" BY BOOKLIST
Not many women can claim to have changed history. But Nafis Sadik actually set that as a goal in her youth and achieved it.
In a dramatic nonfiction narrative Champion of Choice explains her rise to become “one of the most powerful women in the world.” (London Times) When Dr. Sadik, an obstetrician, took a post at the fledgling United Nations Population Fund the year was 1971 and the average global birthrate equaled six children per mother.
By the time of her retirement in 2000, the average birthrate had been cut in half. Her strategy grew out of decades of research and conferring with some of the great minds of our time to form a groundbreaking new approach: provide females with education and the tools to control their own fertility, and the rate of population growth would shrink radically.
Recently released as an audiobook.
Listen now on Audible.
Praise for
Champion of Choice
“Cathleen Miller’s Champion of Choice is a rigorous yet eloquent account of Dr. Sadik’s inspirational career, and a beautiful and long-awaited tribute to one of the greatest women’s advocates of the twentieth century. The issues to which Dr. Sadik has so passionately dedicated her life are becoming only more salient as our global community strives to protect both our people and our planet, and Dr. Sadik will certainly remain an invaluable and unequaled leader in this field for years to come.”
—Ted Turner, UN Foundation Founder and Chairman and Founder of CNN
“Dr. Sadik’s invaluable contribution to improving maternal and child health deserves the gratitude of millions of people around the world.”
—Kofi Annan, former secretary-general of the United Nations and winner of the Nobel Peace Prize
“Extensively researched, Miller's engrossing biography illuminates Sadik's formidable passion. . . . An indefatigable supporter, tenacious crusader, and powerful proponent of women’s autonomy, Sadik is a hero for all ages and genders.”
—Carol Haggas, Booklist starred review
“Miller (Desert Flower) offers an intimate, exhaustive biography of Nafis Sadik, a woman from an upper-class Indian family who became a physician and would eventually pioneer women’s health and welfare rights around the world.”
—Publishers Weekly
“A dense biography of Dr. Nafis Sadik, who changed the world for women through her work.”
—Kirkus Reviews
“Nafis Sadik is a woman who set out to ‘change the world’—and in many ways she did just that.”
—Diane Brandley, New York Journal of Books
“Putting a reality check on the weight of your first-world problems could be as easy as picking up this book.”
—Julie Ann Grimm, Santa Fe New Mexican
“Miller does not just write Sadik's story alone. That would have been too simple. Instead, she juxtaposes Sadik's career with vignettes from the trenches of female victimization in order to reveal examples of the very injustices that Sadik fights against.”
—Gary Singh, Metro Silicon Valley
“Nafis Sadik is a great leader, one of the world’s most powerful women.”
—Carolyn Maloney, U.S. congresswoman
"We must be courageous in speaking out on the issues that concern us. We must not bend under the spurious arguments invoking culture or traditional values. No value worth the name supports the oppression and enslavement of women.
NAFIS SADIK
"The function of culture and tradition is to provide a framework for human well being. If they are used against us, we will reject them, and move on. We will not allow ourselves to be silenced."
NAFIS SADIK
"I do not see empowerment of women as a zero-sum game in which women's gains are men's losses. Rather I see women's empowerment as
the rising tide which
will raise all ships."
NAFIS SADIK