Edmund de Waal

Kirsty Young's castaway is the artist and author, Edmund de Waal. His ceramics are on display in many of the world's major museums. They're delicate pots in shades of white and cream, informed he says by a great deal of thinking about literature.

His written work has also won him several awards; his book "The Hare With Amber Eyes" traces the rich and dramatic story of his family's Russian Jewish heritage and the diaspora in Odessa, Paris, Vienna, and Tokyo.

He says, "I make pots and I write. I'm not one of those people who by mistake became a potter or by mistake is a writer - they are both completely entwined."

Producer: Isabel Sargent.