The Stone Fields: An Epitaph for the Living

In this beautifully written memoir Courtney Brkic describes her work as a forensic anthropologist in Bosnia in the days following the massacre of thousands in the recent war. It is her mission to bear witness-to give faces and voices to the innocent victims of ethnic strife. She does so with anger and compassion, in prose that is luminous and haunting. In counterpoint to the tragic events of recent years Brkic presents a lyrical reminiscence in the chronicle of her Croatian father's extraordinary family, played against the region's tragic history. A must-read, this book is the work of a gifted writer and poet, and it succeeds on many levels. It is a daughter's tribute to her family, an author's plea for justice in the wake of unspeakable events, and a transcendent work of art.

"The Stone Fields" places a human face on the dry remnants of the slaughter that occurred in Bosnia-Herzogovina in the nineties. Ms. Brkic not only knows where the bodies are buried; she has the talent to make the reader perceive them as people. The reader sees and feels the author's own engagement with the remnants of these victims as she goes about her work as a member of the forensic team, excavating bodies, assisting pathologists in conducting autopsies, and arranging personal effects for photographing. But she doesn't stop there. In a rarely accomplished feat of courage and candor, Ms. Brkic integrates her own relationships with her father, who was born in Croatia, her mother and brother, and with her aunts who are still living in Zagreb. An especially poignant part of the book describes the love that was not to last between Ms. Brkic and a young disturbed soldier from "the edge" of Herzegovina. Perhaps the most arresting and exhilarating and hearbreaking part of the story is the deep, abiding affection between Ms. Brkic's Catholic grandmother, Andelka, and her Jewish lover, Joseph, who died in a Nazi concentration camp. This book reminds us that the most precious human qualities, like loyalty and compassion and love, exist in the midst of genocide and in its aftermath.