Skin is the border of our body and as such it is that through which we relate to others but
also what separates us from them. Through skin we speak: when we display it when we tan it
when we tattoo it or when we mute it by covering it with clothes. Skin exhibits social
relationships displays power and the effects of power explains many things about who we are
how others perceive us and how we exist in the world. And when it gets sick it turns us into
monsters. In Skin Sergio del Molino speaks of these monsters in history and literature whose
lives have been tormented by bad skin: Stalin secretly taking a bath in his dacha Pablo
Escobar getting up late and shutting himself in the shower Cyndi Lauper performing a
commercial for a medicine promising relief from skin disease John Updike sunburned in the
Caribbean Nabokov writing to his wife from exile 'Everything would be fine if it weren't for
the damned skin.' As a psoriasis sufferer Sergio del Molino includes himself in this gallery
of monsters through whose stories he delves into the mysteries of skin. What is for some a
badge of pride and for others a source of anguish and shame skin speaks of us and for us when
we don't speak with words.
