**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*

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

About the Author
Edmund de Waal is an artist whose porcelain is exhibited in museums and galleries around the world. His bestselling memoir, The Hare with Amber Eyes, won the RSL Ondaatje prize and the Costa Biography Award and in 2015 he was awarded the Windham-Campbell prize for non-fiction by Yale University. The White Road, a journey into the history of porcelain, was published in 2015. He lives in London with his family. www.edmunddewaal.com

Reviews
[A] wonderful book -- Dame Felicity Lott * Waitrose Weekend *
In a decade where memoir became the dominant genre, this immensely evocative family history told via the journey through the generations of some Japanese miniature figures stood out -- Andrew Holgate * Sunday Times, *Books of the Decade* *
An evocative narrative of art, inheritance and loss * Homes & Antiques *
From a hard and vast archival mass...Mr de Waal has fashioned, stroke by minuscule stroke, a book as fresh with detail as if it had been written from life, and as full of beauty and whimsy as a netsuke from the hands of a master carver. * The Economist *
This remarkable book... a meditation on touch, exile, space and the responsibility of inheritance... like the netsuke themselves, this book is impossible to put down. you have in your hands a masterpiece. -- Frances Wilson * The Sunday Times *


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



Book Information
ISBN 9780099539551
Author Edmund de Waal
Format Paperback
Page Count 368
Imprint Vintage
Publisher Vintage Publishing
Weight(grams) 317g
Dimensions(mm) 198mm * 129mm * 26mm