Letters to Camondo

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What to expect

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

Critics Review

  • I was deeply moved... De Waal has found a way to meditate on exile, migration and polarisation that feels painfully relevant

    Sunday Times
  • This is a marvellous book, elegant, tender, loving, appreciative, disturbing, a reminder of both the fragility and resilience of high culture, indeed civilisation

    Scotsman
  • 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

    Evening Standard
  • De Waal’s sentences like to take the historical weight of the objects he describes… An unforgettable book

    Observer
  • It will make you think differently about trunks in the attic and it will make you read old letters with new eyes

    The Times

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