The Hare With Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance [Paperback]

"...as full of beauty and whimsy as a netsuke from the hands of a master carver"--The Economist

"...this book is impossible to put down. You have in your hands a masterpiece."--Francis Wilson, The Sunday Times

"An intensely personal meditation on art, history and family, told in prose as elegant and precise as the netsuke themselves"--London Review of Books

"It is a rich tale of the pleasure and pains of what it is to be human"--Bettany Hughes, Daily Telegraph

"An exquisitely described search for a lost family and a lost time"--Colm Toibin, The Irish Times

"Both the story he uncovers and the objects he describes are fascinating and startling"--AS Byatt, Financial Times

"Unexpectedly combines a micro craft-form with macro history to great effect"--Julian Barnes, The Guardian

"A book of astonishing originality"--Evening Standard

"An extraordinary and touching journey with a backdrop glittering with images from Proust and Zola and Klimt"--Margaret Drabble, Times Literary Supplement

"Every page of Edmund de Waal’s The Hare with Amber Eyes gave me pleasure"--Rachel Polansky, Times Literary Supplement

The history of a family through 264 objects - set against a turbulent century - from an acclaimed writer and potter

THE NUMBER ONE SUNDAY TIMES BESTSELLER

WINNER OF THE 2010 COSTA BIOGRAPHY AWARD

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' Frances Wilson, 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' Bettany Hughes, Daily Telegraph, Books of the Year

'A complex and beautiful book' Diana Athill

Edmund de Waal's porcelain is shown in many museum collections round the world and he has recently made installations for the V&A and Tate Britain. He was apprenticed as a potter, studied in Japan and read English at Cambridge. He is Professor of Ceramics at the University of Westminster and lives in London with his family.