Edmund de Waal writes memoir and cultural history through objects, collections and the families that owned them. The Hare with Amber Eyes follows a collection of Japanese netsuke through several generations of the Ephrussi family, moving from Paris and Vienna through Nazi dispossession and the post-war survival of the tiny carvings. The White Road turns towards porcelain, following de Waal’s travels to places associated with its discovery and manufacture in China, Germany, England and the United States. Letters to Camondo returns to a Parisian Jewish family and their house through a sequence of imagined letters. De Waal’s prose is reflective, precise and strongly attentive to materials, rooms and provenance. Family memoir, art history and object biography are the strongest categories. The Hare with Amber Eyes is the defining entry for readers interested in how inherited objects can carry histories of wealth, migration and loss. Read more Less
No products in the cart.