The Bone Woman

In the Spring of 1994, Rwanda was the scene of the first acts since the Second World War to be legally defined as genocide. Two years later, Clea Koff, a twenty-three-year-old forensic anthropologist, 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.

Clea Koff was born in England in 1972, and is the daughter of a Tanzanian mother and an American father. Her childhood was spent in England, Kenya, Tanzania, Somalia and the United States. When she was only 23 years old, she was invited to be a forensic expert for the UN International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and was the youngest member of the very first team to arrive in Kibuye in 1996. Clea Koff participated in seven UN missions in Rwanda and Former Yugoslavia. She was Deputy Chief Anthropologist in the Tribunal morgue in Kosovo in 2000. Clea Koff is now based in Los Angeles and Melbourne, Australia. The Bone Woman was published by Atlantic in 2004.