The Bone Woman

In 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 23-year old  forensic anthropologist, left the safe confines of a lab in Berkeley,  California, to serve as one of sixteen scientists chosen by the United  Nations to unearth the physical evidence of the Rwandan genocide. Over  the next four years, Koff's grueling investigations took her across  geography synonymous with some of the worst crimes of the twentieth  century. 

Published in 2004, The Bone Woman is Koff's  unflinching, riveting account of her seven UN missions to Bosnia,  Croatia, Kosovo, and Rwanda, as she shares what she saw, how it affected  her, who was prosecuted based on evidence she found, and what she  learned about the world. Yet even as she recounts the hellish nature of  her work and the heartbreak of the survivors, she imbues her story with  purpose, humanity, and a sense of justice. A tale of science in service  of human rights, The Bone Woman is, even more profoundly, a story of hope and enduring moral principles.

The Bone Woman - now published in ten languages and more than 14 countries - French translation republished by Éditions Héloïse d'Ormesson in 2023