Interviewing war criminals and their victims,Neuffer explains,through the voices of people she follows over the course of a decade,how genocide erodes a nation's social and political environment.Her characters' stories and their competing notions of justice-from searching for the bodies of loved ones,to demanding war crime trials,to seeking bloody revenge-convinces readers that crimes against humanity cannot be resolved by simple talk of forgiveness,or through the more common recourse to forgetfulness.
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Review:
In the wake of genocide, it is probably impossible to achieve anything that approaches justice--and Boston Globe journalist Elizabeth Neuffer knows it. Yet this heartfelt book describes how some of the people in war-torn Rwanda and Bosnia have sought after it anyway, and why the search is so important. The Key to My Neighbor's House is ultimately an anecdotal and impressionistic document, but therein lies its power. It's difficult to forget scenes that begin this way: "Photographs of mass graves can prepare you for what you might see--a jumble of skeletalized limbs, heads, bodies--but nothing prepares you for how it smells." The reportage is marvelous. For instance, Neuffer recounts how prosecutors at a Rwandan tribunal were forced to argue "over whose motion was the most important to be printed out from the scarce paper supply." She also describes the harrowing experience of a Bosnian soldier beginning to grope her--only to discover "the steel plate inside my bulletproof vest." This impressive book will leave a mark on you long after you've set it down. --John Miller
About the Author:
Elizabeth Neuffer is an award-winning reporter for The Boston Globe. While serving as the paper's European Bureau Chief, she won the the Courage In Journalism Award and was then named an Edward R. Murrow Fellow of the Council on Foreign Relations. She lives in New York City.
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- PublisherPicador
- Publication date2001
- ISBN 10 0312261268
- ISBN 13 9780312261269
- BindingHardcover
- Edition number1
- Number of pages544
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