Written on the body is a secret code only visible in certain lights: the accumulation of a lifetime gather there.

In places the palimpsest is so heavily worked that the letters feel like braille.

I like to keep my body rolled away from prying eyes, never unfold too much, tell the whole story.

I didn't know that Louise would have reading hands. She has translated me into her own book.

Jeanette Winterson OBE was born in Manchester. Adopted by Pentecostal parents she was raised to be a missionary. This did and didnt work out.

Discovering early the power of books she left home at 16 to live in a Mini and get on with her education. After graduating from Oxford University she worked for a while in the theatre and published her first novel at 25.Oranges Are Not The Only Fruitis based on her own upbringing but using herself as a fictional character. She scripted the novel into a BAFTA-winning BBC drama. 27 years later she re-visited that material in the bestselling memoirWhy Be Happy When You Could Be Normal?She has written 10 novels for adults, as well as childrens books, non-fiction and screenplays. She writes regularly for theGuardian. She lives in the Cotswolds in a wood and in Spitalfields, London.

She believes that art is for everyone and it is her mission to prove it.