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Skin by Sergio del Molino review – a meditation on psoriasis and the psyche

A sufferer writes about how the skin condition affected figures as diverse as Joseph Stalin, John Updike and Cyndi Lauper

Sergio del Molino was 21 years old when he first experienced symptoms of psoriasis, a chronic autoimmune condition that causes an overproduction of epidermal cells, resulting in scaling on the surface of the skin. These scales appear in red blotches that sometimes crack and bleed. For the next 20 years Del Molino endured considerable physical discomfort – arthritis, back pain, chronic fatigue – and bodily shame; he avoided wearing T-shirts and shorts, and even in the height of summer he would have his shirt buttons done up all the way. Medical interventions provided only limited relief until a medicine called adalimumab bought the disease under control.

Del Molino came to literary prominence in his native Spain with an award-winning memoir about the loss of his baby son, who died of leukaemia before his second birthday. La Hora Violeta (2013) – published in English as The Violet Hour (2016) – was an erudite essay on grief and mortality. In his latest book, published in Spain in 2020, and translated into English by Thomas Bunstead, the story of his illness is a springboard for a wide-ranging meditation, in which the author revisits the lives of several notable psoriasis sufferers – from notorious thugs such as Joseph Stalin and Pablo Escobar to literary doyens John Updike and Vladimir Nabokov – to explore the nexus between the skin and the psyche.

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from Culture | The Guardian https://ift.tt/3pNCl9v
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