This is the definitive illustrated edition of the international bestseller with gorgeous new photography of the celebrated netsuke collection, and sumptuous full-colour images hand-picked by Edmund de Waal from his family archive 264 Japanese wood and ivory carvings, none of them bigger than a matchbox: Edmund de Waal was entranced when he first encountered the collection in his great-uncle Iggie's Tokyo apartment. When he later inherited the 'netsuke', they unlocked a story far larger and more dramatic than he could ever have imagined. From a burgeoning empire in Odessa to fin de siecle Paris, from occupied Vienna to post-war Tokyo, Edmund de Waal traces the netsuke's journey through generations of his remarkable family against the backdrop of a tumultuous century.

By:   Edmund De Waal
Imprint:   Vintage
Country of Publication:   United Kingdom
Edition:   Illustrated edition
Dimensions:   Height: 36mm,  Width: 231mm,  Spine: 169mm
Weight:   1.001kg
ISBN:  

9780701187163

ISBN 10:   0701187166
Pages:   432
Publication Date:   November 2011
Audience:   General/trade ,  ELT Advanced
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In stock at Abbey's Bookshop
This is in stock in our store and available now.

Edmund de Waal is one of the world's leading ceramic artists, and his porcelain is held in many major museum collections. His bestselling memoir, The Hare with Amber Eyes won the Costa Biography Award and the RSL Ondaatje Prize. It was also shortlisted for the Duff Cooper Prize, the Jewish Quarterly Wingate Prize, the PEN/Ackerley Prize and the Southbank Sky Arts Award for Literature. It was longlisted for the Orwell Prize and BBC Samuel Johnson Prize. Edmund was named New Writer of the Year at the 2010 Galaxy National Book Awards. www.edmunddewaal.com

You have in your hands a masterpiece -- Frances Wilson Sunday Times The book not only of the year, but of the decade... A quite enchanting book, to be kept and reread by as many generations as it describes -- Michael Howard TLS Elegant. Modest. Tragic. Homeric. -- Stephen Frears Guardian, Books of the Year The most brilliant book I've read for years... A rich tale of the pleasure and pains of what it is to be human -- Bettany Hughes Daily Telegraph Books of the Year A complex and beautiful book -- Diana Athill Literary Review

<p> A family memoir written with a grace and modesty that almost belie the sweep of its contents: Proust, Rilke, Japanese art, the rue de Monceau, Vienna during the Second World War. The most enchanting history lesson imaginable. -- The New Yorker <p> An extraordinary history...A wondrous book, as lustrous and exquisitely crafted as the netsuke at its heart. -- The Christian Science Monitor <p> A lovely, gripping book. -- The Wall Street Journal <p> Enthralling . . . [de Waal's] essayistic exploration of his family's past pointedly avoids any sentimentality . . . The Hare with Amber Eyes belongs on the same shelf with Vladimir Nabokov's Speak, Memory. --Michael Dirda, The Washington Post Book World This is a book Sebald would have loved. -- The Irish Times <p> At one level [Edmund de Waal] writes in vivid detail of how the fortunes were used to establish the Ephrussis' lavish lives and high positions in Paris and Vienna society. And, as Jews, of their vulnerability: the P

• Winner of Costa Biography Award 2010.
• Winner of Galaxy National Book Awards: National Book Tokens New Writer of the Year 2010.
• Winner of Independent Booksellers' Book of the Year Award: Adults' Book of the Year 2011.
• Winner of Ondaatje Prize 2011.