The Hare with Amber Eyes
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| Author | Edmund de Waal |
|---|---|
| Subject | Ephrussi family |
| Genre | Biography |
| Publisher | Farrar, Straus and Giroux |
Publication date | 2010 |
| Pages | 353 |
| ISBN | 978-0-374-10597-6 |
| OCLC | 694399313 |
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The Hare with Amber Eyes (2010) is a family memoir by British ceramicist Edmund de Waal.[1] De Waal tells the story of his family, the Ephrussi, once a very wealthy European Jewish banking dynasty, centered in Odessa, Vienna and Paris, and peers of the Rothschild family.[1] The Ephrussis lost almost everything in 1938 when the Nazis aryanized their property.[1] Even after the war, the family failed to recover most of its extensive property, including priceless artwork, but an easily hidden collection of 264 Japanese netsuke miniature sculptures was miraculously saved, tucked away inside a mattress by Anna, a loyal maid at Palais Ephrussi in Vienna during the war years. The collection has been passed down through five generations of the Ephrussi family, providing a common thread for the story of its fortunes from 1871 to 2009.
Awards and honours
- 2011 Ondaatje Prize, winner.
- 2011 JQ Wingate Prize, shortlist.[2]
- 2011 ALA Notable Book.
- 2010 Costa Book Awards, winner (Biography).
- 2010 Galaxy National Book Award, New Writer of the Year[3]
- 2010 Amazon.com, Best of the Month, September
- 2010 The Economist, Books of the Year list[4]
Editions
- First UK edition: The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Hidden Inheritance, Chatto & Windus, Great Britain, 2010.
- First US edition: The Hare with Amber Eyes: A Family's Century of Art and Loss, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2010. ISBN 978-0-374-10597-6
- German translation by Brigitte Hilzensauer: Der Hase mit den Bernsteinaugen. Das verborgene Erbe der Familie Ephrussi, Paul Zsolnay Verlag, Vienna, 2011, ISBN 978-3-552-05556-8
Notable reviews
- Review by Michael Dirda in The Washington Post, September 2, 2010
- Review by Rachel Cooke in The Observer, 5 June 2010
- Review in The Economist, May 20, 2010
- Review by David Raitt in The International Netsuke Society Journal Vol 30, n3, Fall 2010, pp44–46
References
- 1 2 3 'Hare' chronicles unheard of Jewish family, The Jewish Chronicle of Pittsburgh (6 September 2011)
- ↑ Jewish Quarterly-Wingate Prize 2011
- ↑ Galaxy National Book Awards, Northumberland County Council
- ↑ Books of the Year, 2010, The Economist
External links
Media related to Hare with Amber Eyes (Ephrussi Collection) at Wikimedia Commons
- The Hare with Amber Eyes, author website.
- Edmund de Waal on YouTube, by Random Reads, June 29, 2010.
- "Edmund de Waal on Proust: The writer behind the hare" - article about the book, of April 1, 2011