Edmund de Waal: I'm just a potter
17th January 2011
Edmund de Waal believes he is 'just a potter who wrote a book', despite his recent success in the Costa Book Prize.
Earlier this month, the ceramic artist won the award's biography category with The Hare With Amber Eyes and was subsequently deemed to be frontrunner to take the overall 2010 Costa Book of the Year title by Irish bookmaker Paddy Power.
However, De Waal downplayed his success in an interview with kentnews.co.uk and said he was only motivated to write the book, which explains how he came to possess a collection of 264 Japanese netsuke figurines, so his family could read it.
'I had no expectations at all that it would receive so much attention and be read by so many people. I'm completely overwhelmed by it all,' he commented.
De Waal also told the website that he will write another book, but warned readers not to expect it to be published for at least a decade.
The other authors vying for the Costa Book of the Year honour are Maggie O'Farrell with her novel The Hand That First Held Mine, Kishwar Desai for debut Witness the Night, poet Jo Shapcott with Of Mutability and Jason Wallace
for children's book Out of Shadows.