Dragon Fighter:
One Woman’s Epic Struggle for Peace with China
RAFTO PEACE PRIZE LAUREATE
REBIYA KADEER
with Alexandra Cavelius
INTRODUCTION BY HIS HOLINESS THE DALAI LAMA
“Remarkable life”
New York Times
“Extremely important”
Wall Street Journal
“Thrilling”
Washington Post
“Breathing fire”
Economist
“Extraordinary”
Foreign Policy Magazine
“Voice for freedom”
Weekly Standard
“Triumphs”
Brooks Foreign Policy Review
“Fearless”
Democracy Digest
“Hard-won wisdom”
Publishers Weekly
“Ground-level insight ”
Financial Times
“Exceptional”
Far Eastern Economic Review
“Call for justice”
The Times U.K.
“Prominent”
Agence France-Presse
“Beautiful”
The Australian
“Woman of steel”
The Age, Australia
“Compelling”
The Times of India
“Who Beijing fears”
Hindustan Times, India
“A moral pillar”
Rafto Foundation, Norway
“Full of integrity”
Annelie Enochson, Swedish Parliament
Along the ancient Silk Road where Europe, Asia, and Russia converge stands the six-thousand-year-old homeland of a peaceful ethnic minority, the Uyghurs. Their culture is filled with music, dance, family, and a love of tradition passed down through the ages. Today there are approximately twenty million Uyghurs worldwide.
This remarkable autobiography traces the life of their transcendent leader Rebiya Kadeer from her humble beginnings to her position as an indomitable world figure struggling for Uyghur human rights in the face of the communist domination of The People’s Republic of China.
REBIYA KADEER is president of the World Uyghur Congress and the Uyghur American Association. She is devoted to the principles of non-violence. Her life story is one of legends. She was a refugee child, a self-made multimillionaire, and a high official in China’s National Congress. Later, the Chinese government jailed her as a political dissident for nearly six years—two of which were in solitary confinement in notoriously brutal conditions.
During her incarceration Human Rights Watch honored Mrs. Kadeer with its highest award, as did Norway’s Rafto Foundation for Human Rights. International pressure eventually brought about her release and exile to the United States.
$28.95 cloth
ISBN 978-0-9798456-1-1
6⅛ x 9¼ inches
24-page full color photograph section
426 pages / MEMOIR, Uyghur, human rights, China
ALEXANDRA CAVELIUS has been active as a freelance journalist and non-fiction author for many years. She has published numerous books including most recently the war biography Leila: The Story of a Bosnian Girl. She lives in Germany.
