An extraordinary blend of
narrative history and memoir, by the author of the award-winning and
bestselling international sensation, The Hare with Amber Eyes
In The White Road,
artist Edmund de Waal gives us an intimate portrait of his lifelong
obsession with porcelain, or “white gold.” A potter who has been working
with porcelain for more than forty years, de Waal describes how he set
out on five journeys to places where porcelain was dreamed about,
refined, collected, and coveted―and that would help him understand the
clay’s mysterious allure. From his studio in London, he begins by
travelling to three “white hills”―sites in China, Germany, and England
that are key to porcelain’s creation. But his search eventually leads
him around the globe and reveals more than a history of cups and
figurines; rather, he is forced to confront some of the darkest moments
of twentieth-century history.
Part memoir, part history, part detective story, The White Road chronicles a global obsession with alchemy, art, wealth, craft, and purity.
