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Letters to Camondo

From the bestselling author of The Hare with Amber Eyes

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Letters to Camondo

Written by: Edmund de Waal
Narrated by: Edmund de Waal
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About this listen

Brought to you by Penguin.

63 rue de Monceau, Paris
Dear friend,
As you may have guessed by now, I am not in your house by accident. I know your street rather well.

Count Moïse de Camondo lived a few doors away from Edmund de Waal's forebears, the Ephrussi, first encountered in his bestselling memoir The Hare with Amber Eyes. Like the Ephrussi, the Camondos were part of belle époque high society. They were also targets of anti-semitism.

Camondo created a spectacular house and filled it with the greatest private collection of French eighteenth-century art for his son to inherit. But when Nissim was killed in the First World War, it became a memorial and, on the Count's death, was bequeathed to France.

The Musée Nissim de Camondo has remained unchanged since 1936. Edmund de Waal explores the lavish rooms and detailed archives and uncovers new layers to the family story. In a haunting series of letters addressed to the Count, he tells us what happened next.

© Edmund de Waal 2021 (P) Penguin Audio 2021

 20th Century Art Europe History Judaism Modern

Critic Reviews

I was deeply moved... De Waal has found a way to meditate on exile, migration and polarisation that feels painfully relevant
This is a marvellous book, elegant, tender, loving, appreciative, disturbing, a reminder of both the fragility and resilience of high culture, indeed civilisation
De Waal is a writer of grace and restlessly enquiring intelligence, and Letters to Camondo succeeds admirably... Edmund de Waal's beautiful book opens a window onto an entire lost world
De Waal's sentences like to take the historical weight of the objects he describes... An unforgettable book
It will make you think differently about trunks in the attic and it will make you read old letters with new eyes
Consistently illuminating... excellently illustrated... De Waal's excavation of the meanings of assimilation is considered, compassionate and appreciative of its costs... he is a wise guide to people and things that are dispersed and are collected... This book is a wonderful tribute to a family and to an idea (Nicholas Wroe)
More than chronicling the [Camondo] family's splendor and tragic end, de Waal has created a deeply hued tapestry of a lost time and a poetic meditation on grief, memory, and the fragile consolation of art... A radiant family history.
Letters to Camondo immerses you in another age - one as sharply torn with rifts and bigotry, political uncertainty and changing fortunes as our own - but also a time of grace and the deliberate cultivation of pleasure... de Waal creates a dazzling picture of what it means to live graciously (Nilanjana Roy)
Letters to Camondo... is subtle and thoughtful and nuanced and quiet. It is demanding but rewarding. It will make you think differently about trunks in the attic and it will make you read old letters with new eyes (Laura Freeman)
I was deeply moved... [de Waal] has found a way to meditate on exile, migration and polarisation that feels painfully relevant (Johanna Thomas-Corr)
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