Rose George is a freelance journalist who, upon realizing the massive death toll due to poor sanitation —food and water contaminated by human excreta kills the equivalent of four jumbo jets full of children every day—decided to explore why sanitation doesn't get the attention it deserves in global development and public consciousness.

Rose George is the author of The Big Necessity: The Unmentionable World of Human Waste and Why It Matters, an eye-opening report on the shocking realities of the world’s sanitation crisis, which is the leading cause of illness and death in developing countries. Based on Rose’s travels to Africa, China, India and other countries, the book has been featured in The Economist, TIME and The New York Times. She writes about one of the world’s most serious health challenges with gravity, wit and a story-teller’s flair. Rose has witnessed the appalling sanitation conditions endured by most of the world’s poor, and seen the latest technological breakthroughs that can bring practical sanitation solutions to people and communities around the world.

George was a senior editor and writer at COLORS magazine, the bilingual “global magazine about local cultures” published in 80 countries and based first in Rome, then Paris, then Venice. In 1999, she moved to London and began a freelance career, and has since written for the Guardian, Independent, Arena, London Review of Books and others. George has been war correspondent in Kosovo for Condé Nast Traveler magazine and a guest at Saddam Hussein’s birthday party, twice. She is currently associate editor for Tank, a quarterly magazine of fashion, art, reportage and culture based in London. She received her congratulatory first-class honors BA in modern languages from the University of Oxford in 1992, and her MA in international politics in 1994 from the University of Pennsylvania.

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