The Hare With Amber Eyes

**WINNER OF THE COSTA BIOGRAPHY AWARD** Edmund de Waal uncovers the history of a family through a turbulent century through 264 objects. 264 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 Tokyo, Edmund de Waal traces the netsuke's journey through generations of his remarkable family against the backdrop of a tumultuous century. 'You have in your hands a masterpiece' Sunday Times 'The most brilliant book I've read for years... A rich tale of the pleasure and pains of what it is to be human' Daily Telegraph **ONE OF THE GUARDIAN 'S 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21st CENTURY*

**WINNER OF THE COSTA BIOGRAPHY AWARD** Edmund de Waal uncovers the history of a family through a turbulent century through 264 objects. 264 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 Tokyo, Edmund de Waal traces the netsuke's journey through generations of his remarkable family against the backdrop of a tumultuous century. 'You have in your hands a masterpiece' Sunday Times 'The most brilliant book I've read for years... A rich tale of the pleasure and pains of what it is to be human' Daily Telegraph **ONE OF THE GUARDIAN 'S 100 BEST BOOKS OF THE 21st CENTURY*

A New York Times Bestseller An Economist Book of the Year Costa Book Award Winner for Biography Galaxy National Book Award Winner (New Writer of the Year Award) Edmund de Waal is a world-famous ceramicist. Having spent thirty years making beautiful pots--which are then sold, collected, and handed on--he has a particular sense of the secret lives of objects. When he inherited a collection of 264 tiny Japanese wood and ivory carvings, called netsuke, he wanted to know who had touched and held them, and how the collection had managed to survive. And so begins The Hare with Amber Eyes , this extraordinarily moving memoir and detective story as de Waal discovers both the origins of the netsuke and of his family, the Ephrussis, over five generations. A nineteenth-century banking dynasty in Paris and Vienna, the Ephrussis were as rich and respected as the Rothchilds. Yet by the end of the World War II, when the netsuke were hidden from the Nazis in Vienna, this collection of very small carvings was all that remained of their vast empire. To be handed a story as durable and exquisitely crafted as this is a rare pleasure. . . . This book is impossible to put down. You have in your hands a masterpiece. -- The Sunday Times (London)