Edmund De Waal Books
Edmund de Waal is a British ceramic artist and writer, best known for his large-scale installations of porcelain vessels and his literary works exploring memory, art, and family history. He was born in 1964 in Nottingham, England, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
Known for: The Hare With Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance, The White Road: A Pilgrimage of Sorts
Books by Edmund De Waal
The Hare With Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance
The Hare With Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance is a remarkable blend of family memoir, cultural history, and detective-like reconstruction. Edmund de Waal begins with 264 tiny Japanese netsuke—miniatu...
The White Road: A Pilgrimage of Sorts
The White Road: A Pilgrimage of Sorts is a nonfiction work by British ceramic artist and writer Edmund de Waal. It traces the history and cultural significance of porcelain, following de Waal’s person...
Key Insights from Edmund De Waal
A Family Fortune Built on Movement
Every inheritance begins long before the heir receives it. To understand the netsuke, Edmund de Waal goes back to Odessa, where the Ephrussi family first made its fortune in the grain trade. In the 19th century, Odessa was a fast-growing Black Sea port shaped by commerce, migration, and imperial amb...
From The Hare With Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance
Charles Ephrussi and the Art of Belonging
Collecting art can be a way of declaring who you are before society decides for you. In Paris, Charles Ephrussi becomes one of the book’s most captivating figures: a banker’s son turned scholar, collector, editor, and man about town. He moves confidently through Belle Époque culture, befriending art...
From The Hare With Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance
The Netsuke as Carriers of Intimacy
Small things often survive because they are held close. The netsuke enter the story in Paris as exquisite Japanese carvings collected during a wave of late-19th-century fascination with Japonisme. Unlike grand paintings or imposing furniture, these objects are tactile, private, and meant to be handl...
From The Hare With Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance
Vienna, Splendor, and Hidden Precariousness
A family can appear fully established just before history turns against it. When the netsuke move to Vienna with Viktor and Emmy Ephrussi, they enter a world of extraordinary privilege. The Ephrussis live in a vast palace on the Ringstrasse, entertain lavishly, dress impeccably, and participate in t...
From The Hare With Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance
Anschluss and the Machinery of Erasure
Catastrophe often arrives not as chaos, but as administration. After the Anschluss in 1938, the annexation of Austria by Nazi Germany, the Ephrussi family’s life in Vienna is dismantled through a chillingly systematic process. Their home is invaded, their possessions cataloged, their bank accounts s...
From The Hare With Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance
What Survives After Everything Else Is Lost
Loss is never tidy, and survival rarely looks heroic in the moment. After the war, what remains of the Ephrussi world is fragmentary. Houses are gone, status has vanished, archives are incomplete, and the family is dispersed across countries and languages. Recovery is partial at best. De Waal does n...
From The Hare With Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance
About Edmund De Waal
Edmund de Waal is a British ceramic artist and writer, best known for his large-scale installations of porcelain vessels and his literary works exploring memory, art, and family history. He was born in 1964 in Nottingham, England, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
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Edmund de Waal is a British ceramic artist and writer, best known for his large-scale installations of porcelain vessels and his literary works exploring memory, art, and family history. He was born in 1964 in Nottingham, England, and is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.
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