AIRED: April 2, 2012– 11 am PST
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TITLE: “A Walk Across the Sun” – A Hidden World of Illicit Commerce – Human Trafficking Children
SPECIAL GUEST: Corban Addison, Author of “A Walk Across the Sun”
Read More About “A Walk Across the Sun”
Corban Addison describes to Allen, Dr. Melody and our listeners, the events that led him to go undercover in India’s human slavery underworld while preparing to write his latest novel, “A Walk Across the Sun”. A supporter of international justice causes, including the abolition of modern slavery, Addison is committed to broadening this support through the publication of his book.
“Corban Addison has written a novel that is beautiful in its story and also important in its message. ‘A Walk Across the Sun’ deserves a wide audience.” John Grisham
Spanning three continents and two cultures, the book chronicles an unforgettable journey through the underworld of modern slavery and into the darkest, and most resilient, corners of the human heart. In describing his research, he states that his education was at times both heartbreaking and harrowing.
Addison spent six months reading everything he could find on the trade. He went to the experts and learned from them,and made a trip to Washington, D.C., to interview a high-level official at the Justice Department. After his interviews with activists in the United States and the European Union, he had amassed over two hundred pages of notes—more than half the length of the book itself.
With his the first part of his research completed, he spent a month with the International Justice Mission, or IJM, a human rights organization that combats forced prostitution in a number of Indian cities. There he interviewed investigators who roam the red light areas looking for tips about minor girls. Addison went to court with IJM’s lawyers, accompanied their social workers and met children rescued from exploitation. But watching IJM in action wasn’t enough, he knew that to write about it, he had to see the sex trade for himself.
So, Addison went undercover into the brothels of Mumbai. Behind closed doors and drawn shades, he met girls who were not free to leave, girls who stood beneath the lights wondering whom he would choose. He said he would never forget shaking the brothel owner’s hand after he declined to make a purchase. In our world of shifting shadows, the face of evil is often hard to discern. But he saw it that night. Three days later, he left India and returned to write the story.
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ABOUT THE CORBAN ADDISON
Corban Addison holds degrees in law and engineering from the University of Virginia and California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. He began to experiment with writing at the age of fifteen, about the same time he developed an interest in international travel. His early works were mostly essays, reflections and travelogues, but his true love was fiction. For eight years he searched for a story with wings. In the end, the story found him.
In the summer of 2008, Addison’s wife gave him an idea that he found irresistible–a novel on the global trade in human beings. Despite the increasing demands of career and family, he embarked upon an odyssey that took him to India and Europe and into the corridors of power in Washington, D.C. In immersing himself in the world of modern-day slavery, he spent time with experts and activists in the field and went undercover into the brothels of Mumbai to meet trafficking victims firsthand.
Out of this journey, A Walk Across the Sun was born. It is a novel that brings together three of Addison’s great passions–storytelling, human rights, and the world and its cultures–in a narrative that enlightens while it entertains. Addison is a supporter of international justice causes, including the abolition of modern slavery, and he is committed to broadening this support through the publication of A Walk Across the Sun.
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