Edmund de Waal for How to Begin

The internationally beloved author of The Hare with Amber Eyes and Letters to Camondo shares how to find a creative voice and becoming an artist via a scintillating discovery in his family archives: letters between his grandmother and the great poet Rainer Maria Rilke.

Edmund de Waal's grandmother, Elisabeth Ephrussi, aspired to be a poet as a young woman. While studying for a law degree in 1920s Vienna, she entered into a short but dramatic correspondence with the great German-language poet, Rainer Maria Rilke, in which he mentored her writing – and gave her advice on how to balance the demands of creativity with the need for work. When, decades later, Edmund started to write himself, his grandmother read his poetry and in turn took on the role of mentor.

This is an inspiring book about the challenges of setting out on a creative life as a young person and the solaces that come from having a mentor. It is about the moment when an artist must leave their mentor behind and discover their own voice.

Edmund de Waal is an artist whose porcelain is exhibited in museums and galleries around the world. His memoir, The Hare with Amber Eyes, won the RSL Ondaatje prize and the Costa Biography Award. 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 the same year.