De Waal, author of the 2010 bestselling family memoir The Hare with Amber Eyes, said he and his relatives would be returning to Vienna in November for their first reunion in more than eight decades. Now, somewhat ironically, we’re going back to the Vienna which banished my family in order to reinforce that Europeanness. Facebook Twitter Pinterest Edmund de Waal in his ‘library of exile’, a porcelain pavilion with books by writers forced to leave home. Photograph: Mike Bruce/Courtesy of the artistThe Hare with Amber Eyes, which has sold more than 1.5 million copies and been translated into 30 languages, tells how De Waal’s ancestral Jewish family, the Ephrussi, were dispossessed of their fortune. De Waal and about 40 Ephrussi descendants will hold the first family gathering in Palais Ephrussi in more than eight decades.

Source: The Guardian September 28, 2019 12:00 UTC