Candia McWilliam was born in Edinburgh. She is the author of A Case of Knives (1988) which won a Betty Trask Prize, A Little Stranger (1989), Debatable Land (1994) which was awarded the Guardian Fiction Prize and a collection of stories, Wait Till I Tell You (1997). In 2006 she began to suffer from the effects of blepharospasm and became functionally blind as a result. In 2009 she underwent an operation which harvested tendons from her leg in order to enable her to open her eyelids.

"One of the most extraordinary literary autobiographies of this or any other year" The Times "An essential book in all of its aspects, a thing of beauty and of unbearable hurt, of dreadful harm and intense humanity...This is the work of a capacious, open, vulnerable and unfailingly generous soul" Scotsman "A searingly honest, beautiful book" -- Kate Mosse Daily Telegraph "One of the most devastatingly moving memoirs I've ever read...a work of beauty and truth " Independent "Miraculous" -- Hilary Spurling Guardian

Candia McWilliam was born in Edinburgh. She is the author of A Case of Knives (1988) which won a Betty Trask Prize, A Little Stranger (1989), Debatable Land (1994) which was awarded the Guardian Fiction Prize and a collection of stories, Wait Till I Tell You (1997). In 2006 she began to suffer from the effects of blepharospasm and became functionally blind as a result. In 2009 she underwent an operation which harvested tendons from her leg in order to enable her to open her eyelids.

"One of the most extraordinary literary autobiographies of this or any other year" The Times "An essential book in all of its aspects, a thing of beauty and of unbearable hurt, of dreadful harm and intense humanity...This is the work of a capacious, open, vulnerable and unfailingly generous soul" Scotsman "A searingly honest, beautiful book" -- Kate Mosse Daily Telegraph "One of the most devastatingly moving memoirs I've ever read...a work of beauty and truth " Independent "Miraculous" -- Hilary Spurling Guardian

Candia McWilliam was born in Edinburgh. She is the author of A Case of Knives (1988) which won a Betty Trask Prize, A Little Stranger (1989), Debatable Land (1994) which was awarded the Guardian Fiction Prize and a collection of stories, Wait Till I Tell You (1997). In 2006 she began to suffer from the effects of blepharospasm and became functionally blind as a result. In 2009 she underwent an operation which harvested tendons from her leg in order to enable her to open her eyelids.

"One of the most extraordinary literary autobiographies of this or any other year" The Times "An essential book in all of its aspects, a thing of beauty and of unbearable hurt, of dreadful harm and intense humanity...This is the work of a capacious, open, vulnerable and unfailingly generous soul" Scotsman "A searingly honest, beautiful book" -- Kate Mosse Daily Telegraph "One of the most devastatingly moving memoirs I've ever read...a work of beauty and truth " Independent "Miraculous" -- Hilary Spurling Guardian