A book about archives that is itself archival, this volume gathers Edmund de Waal's reflections on archives spanning more than a decade, arranged in chronological order. It is also cyclical: it begins in Odessa in 2009 and ends in Paris in 2021, encountering his family archives in both places. Along the way, de Waal responds to the archives of poets, artists, and places he loves.
an Archive brings together texts by de Waal that first appeared in earlier publications now out of print. The act of compiling this material is not only archival in itself but also an essay on the subject, offering different perspectives on how an archive can be defined and experienced, whether by its creator or its viewer.
As with much of de Waal’s work, the book is concerned with collecting and collections—how objects are gathered, lost, stolen, or dispersed. It is part of the Ivorypress Archives series, which seeks to make unpublished, long-lost, or out-of-print material accessible to the wider public.