Skin: A Biography

An accessible look at skin – our most fundamental organ – by one of the foremost experts in the field The story goes back to a flat and primeval earth, where the sun was dominant and the seas shallow. Fossils buried and unearthed, unicellular and multicellular, all told this evolutionary tale of the development of skin into an organ, and the changes it undertook every time the future of a species was at stake.’ Skin: A Biography tells a complex tale with many unexpected connections in its exploration of our largest sense organ. It is a tale that lays bare a strange world: a mix of science, romance and mystery. Did you know, for instance, that one single chemically inert and stable pigment is responsible for all variations in skin colour among humans? That the top layer of our skin is essentially ‘dead’? Have you stopped to think why we need skin at all – or for that matter, why life even bothered to move from its uncomplicated unicellular state to these messy, energy-consuming, multi-cellular beings? Beautifully written and passionately researched, this book will fundamentally change the way we think about skin and skin colour. Combining scientific expertise with his credentials as an acclaimed writer of literary fiction, Sharad P. Paul peels away artificial divisions to lay open the genetic chains that bind races and species together, and draws us into a wonderful, uncertain world.

Sharad P. Paul was born in England in 1966, but grew up in India. He is a doctor, writer, medical law-degree holder and social entrepreneur. His first novel, Cool Cut, was published in 2007. He is the man behind the Baci Group which includes Baci Lounge, an award-winning independent bookstore/cafe; Baci Cosmetologie, a skin care company; and Baci Foundation, a charity which runs literacy and mentoring programmes for disadvantaged children. Visit him at www.sharadpaul.com. For more on the book, visit www.tokillasnowdragonfly.com.