‘Enchanting, illuminating and tender’ – Nigel Slater

‘The lasting message of How to Begin is one of empowerment’ – The Observer

‘I believe you can live in a book of poems’

A book about finding a creative voice and becoming an artist via a startling rediscovery in Edmund de Waal’s family archives – letters between his grandmother and the charismatic poet Rainer Maria Rilke

** With letters translated from the German by prizewinning translator, Karen Leeder **

This is a story about how to begin.

In 1921, Elisabeth Ephrussi writes a letter to the great poet Rainer Maria Rilke. She too is a poet, or an aspiring one – a young law student in Vienna just beginning her creative life. To her surprise, Rilke writes back with advice. A five-year correspondence follows, an exchange of lyrical and exhortatory letters alongside books, translations, poems in manuscript. They never meet.

Fifty years later, Elisabeth’s grandson, Edmund de Waal, wants to be a poet and a potter. He sends her his own poetry, and she responds with guidance and Rilke’s Duino Elegies.

How to Begin follows Edmund’s journey as an artist. This is a book about failure, about starting again, about apprenticeship and asking for and then disregarding advice, about working out ways to keep going when you don’t know how.

It is a moving, intergenerational story about the traces of memory within a family, and a deeply personal reflection on how we learn resilience with the support of others. It is for any reader starting out, seeking the permission to begin.

Praise

Artmaking, poetry, the wisdom of elders and the naivety of youth all coincide in these illuminating pages
Bookseller

Enchanting, illuminating and tender
Nigel Slater

A moving tribute to an inspiring grandmother and the art of creation
Kirkus (US)

De Waal explores the impetus to create in this striking mix of memoir, family history, and advice… This will speak to anyone harboring artistic aspirations
Publishers Weekly (US)

[an] exquisitely distilled chronicle… de Waal offers another inspiring and moving capsule of Rilke’s warmth, wisdom, and generosity … The letters that complete this graceful and resonant volume glow with mutual affection and support.
Booklist (US)

A rumination on artistry, poetry, inheritance, mentorship and creative starts.
The Observer

Driven by ideas of restitution – not only of ownership, but of giving people a voice –the lasting message of How to Begin is one of empowerment.
The Observer