Turning pain and suffering into creativity is a kind of alchemy

Behind every great writer or artist there often lies a story of adversity. Mexican painter Frida Kahlo’s art sprung from a devastating accident which left her bedbound for months and in chronic pain for most of her life.

Author Roald Dahl’s classic children’s books were inspired by his “horror days” at boarding school, where he was brutally beaten by his teachers. The great Charles Dickens grew up in grinding poverty, forced to leave school aged 12 to help support his family, yet he went onto become one of the greatest writers of all time.

For Scottish author Jenni Fagan, who published her fourth novel this month, it was being brought up “without a voice” in the Scottish care system which drove her extraordinary talent and passion for storytelling.

In our interview, on pages 6&7, Fagan describes how escaping into books and cinema when she was a little girl set her on the path to becoming an award-winning poet and critically acclaimed novelist.

She tells us: “In the care system, you are constantly told the story about who you are by people who don’t know you. So storytelling and the purpose of storytelling always fascinates me.”

Through her novels, poetry and now screenwriting, the little girl with the worst possible start in life has achieved more than anyone – including herself – ever believed possible.

It’s both astonishing and inspiring to know that the human mind is capable of such creative alchemy during the darkest of times. Especially when there appears so little light to be found in the world right now.