The Bone Woman
"It may be that this is the ultimate memoir of the post-Cold War decade ...
a hugely important book." - The Telegraph, UK
Photo: Lake Kivu, Rwanda © 1996 Clea Koff
"It may be that this is the ultimate memoir of the post-Cold War decade ...
a hugely important book." - The Telegraph, UK
Photo: Lake Kivu, Rwanda © 1996 Clea Koff
In the Spring of 1994, Rwanda was the scene of the first acts since World War II to be legally defined as genocide.
Two years later, Clea Koff, a twenty-three-year-old forensic anthropologist analyzing prehistoric skeletons in California, was one of sixteen scientists chosen by the United Nations International Criminal Tribunal to go to Rwanda to unearth physical evidence of war crimes and crimes against humanity.
The Bone Woman is Koff's riveting, intimate account of that mission and six subsequent missions she undertook to Bosnia, Croatia, and Kosovo on behalf of the UN. It is, ultimately, a story filled with hope, humanity, and justice.
Published in 2004 by Random House in the United States, Hodder Headline in Australia, Atlantic in the United Kingdom, Knopf in Canada, and in translation by 10 international publishers in nine languages between 2004 and 2007.
In 2023, the audiobook of The Bone Woman was published in the United States by Dreamscape Media and Éditions Héloïse d'Ormesson re-published La Mémoire des os.
"Chilling but mesmerizing...Koff's account is neither histrionic nor preachy; it's clear-eyed, hard-headed and straightforward...This book works so well, is so vivid and so moving, because Koff surrounds the dead bodies with living stories." - Bookpage, US
"Though stalwartly non-academic, this book is a must-read for students of forensic science, political science, international law and other disciplines that study or directly contribute to human rights investigations." - Globe and Mail, Canada
"...The most impressive book about politics that I read this year, Clea Koff's The Bone Woman: Among the Dead in Rwanda, Bosnia, Croatia, and Kosovo. Moving from one mass grave to the next, she uncovers what really happened." - Clive James in The Times Literary Supplement, UK
National Public Radio - Maureen Corrigan
Discover Magazine
Foreign Policy Association
Jenny Crwys-Williams, Radio 702, 9 December
Booktrust
Andrea Levy in The Guardian
Black Issues Book Review
Clive James in The Times Literary Supplement, 3 December
De la Ville de Nancy, presented by Jorge Semprun
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