The Key to My Neighbor's House: Seeking Justice in Bosnia and Rwanda [Hardcover]

Elizabeth Neuffer (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 17, 2001

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.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com 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

From Publishers Weekly

Boston Globe reporter Neuffer ably, sensitively humanizes two of the worst tragedies of the 1990s. By retelling the atrocities through her on-the-ground interviews, she coaxes readers more deeply into these two ghastly, complex tales. While she interviews victims and perpetrators, Neuffer focuses primarily on the victims and their search for relatives and justice once the violence has subsided. One particularly poignant story concerns Hasan Nuhanovic, a Bosnian Muslim whose family disappeared at the hands of Bosnian Serbs; while searching for them, Nuhanovic learns details of their deaths. Neuffer is honest about the difficulties faced by war crimes tribunals in 1996, the Rwandan tribunal was "an institution in disarray" and "strangled by a huge bureaucracy; riven by political infighting, nepotism, and incompetence"; the Bosnian tribunal, too, the author reports, is far from perfect, but general opinion allows that it's better than no justice at all. But buoyed by the courage of people like Witness JJ, a Rwandan woman whose testimony helped convict an official of complicity in rape, Neuffer is optimistic about the courts' ultimate success. The people she interviewed, though, are less satisfied by the search for justice. This comprehensive study lends an immediacy to these two conflicts and the vicissitudes of the growing movement for international justice. Five maps not seen by PW. Agent, Michael Carlisle. (Nov.)Forecast: American attention has certainly been drawn away from Bosnia and Rwanda, but the questions Neuffer asks about the boundaries between justice and revenge remain highly relevant. Readers concerned with international justice will be drawn to this book.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 544 pages
• Publisher: Picador; 1st edition (November 17, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0312261268
• ISBN-13: 978-0312261269
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 6.5 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #994,050 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #99 in Books > History > Europe > Bosnia and Herzegovina

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Most Honest Book Yet, July 12, 2002

By 

A Reader (Florida) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Key to My Neighbor's House: Seeking Justice in Bosnia and Rwanda (Hardcover)

I just finished The Key To My Neighbor's House. Being a survivor of the Bosnian war of 1992, this book really brought some sense of justice and understanding for me. I've read many books about the war in Bosnia, but none were as accurate as The Key To My Neighbor's House. Most of the books I've read about the war in Bosnia mostly focus on the political side of the war. The Key To My Neigbor's House tells the real,true story behind the Bosnian war of 1992. Elizabeth Neuffer got the real story from the real people. Most authors would've gotten their information from the political figures or some sort of high ranking officials, but not Elizabeth Neuffer. I've learned a lot from this book, even though I went through the whole war experience, but there was a lot I didn't know. I would like to thank Elizabeth Neuffer for risking her life to write this book. I really appreciate all of her hard work. I would recomend this book to anyone wanting to learn the real sory behind the war in Bosnia and Rwanda.

17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Poignant Testament to the Power of Bearing Witness, November 25, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: The Key to My Neighbor's House: Seeking Justice in Bosnia and Rwanda (Hardcover)

Elizabeth Neuffer has written a poignant testament to the power of bearing witness, the responsibility of the individual to bear witness, and the healing power of bearing witness. Her book is also an examination into why so many refused to bear witness when it was in their power, and most certainly their responsibility, to do so.

By writing this book, Ms. Neuffer makes us witnesses too; not only to the genocide that took place in Rwanda and Bosnia, but also to the shameful conduct of our own American leaders, the Dutch, the United Nations, and many others; others who had the power to intervene, to save, to heal -- and, failing any of the preceding -- to bear witness themselves (rather than claiming ignorance, despite all documentation to the contrary).

When I was growing up, I heard over and over that genocide could never happen again (because, as the theory went, the world would not stand by to allow it). Well, the world did stand by. It stood by and failed the citizens of Rwanda and the citizens of Bosnia. But thanks to the courage of writers such as Elizabeth Neuffer and Philip Gourevitch (author of "We Wish To Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families"); we readers must now be counted among the witnesses, and thus among those responsible to further their efforts by sharing these books with our friends in order to shed light; to stand accountable; to bear witness.

15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Needed justice and the hope and healing it can bring., May 23, 2002

By 

Allan M. Gathercoal "fdoamerica" (Norcross, GA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Key to My Neighbor's House: Seeking Justice in Bosnia and Rwanda (Hardcover)

Hope - this book is about needed justice and the hope and healing it can bring.

My journey to Rwanda this year prompted me to delve into the tyrannical torture and terror that swept this small, poor nation in 1994.

In 1994, over a period 100 days, over one million people were butchered. It is such a staggering number that it is hard to comprehend. Just to write the first names of the murdered down would take you 2 ½ years, writing six names a minute for eight hours a day.

Although Elizabeth Neuffer's book is about the pursuit of justice and the delivery of justice, it is also about the grim and gruesome reality of killers, rapists and victims. Her clear, straight forward journalistic writing style is engaging. Of the books I have read on Rwanda's genocide (I highly recommend both Scott Peterson's 'Me Against My Brother' and Philip Gourvitch's 'We wish to Inform You That Tomorrow We Will Be Killed With Our Families') Neuffer is the only one that covers rape. She has dedicated chapters to the rape, and it need to be judged as a war crime. She exposes the effect that has on the victims. Her sensitivity and willing to disclose this little discussed topic is needed, refreshing and laudable. Kudos.

Rwanda now has 130,000 incarcerated, waiting for their genocide trials to begin. But, justice is extremely slow in coming. One case alone took 1.5 years. In three years Rwanda's courts have handed down 2,500 vertics. At that rate it will take the Rwandan courts 150 years to clear the dockets. "Perhaps what you end up with in a post-genocide society is not justice at all" Gerald Gahima, Rwanda's previous deputy minister of justice, stated. "Maybe we should think of another word for it."

In her book Bosnia get the lion share of her writing (400 plus pages) but her short sections dealing with Rwanda is alone worth the price of the purchase. This is an outstanding book, worth of any library and to be read by anyone interested in these topics. Highly Recommended.