(The Guardian) – One hundred years after Virginia Woolf explored the limitations of language in On Being Ill, the Piranesi author reflects on the power of storytelling to shape our experience of sickness

In her essay On Being Ill, Virginia Woolf says, “let a sufferer try to describe a pain in his head to a doctor and language at once runs dry”.

At least I was in good company.

I remember very well what I wanted to say to the doctor: “I feel like I am about to fall off the world.” I had the sense to realise that he would probably not be able to do much with this. What doctors need is a clear description of something physical, but what the sufferer experiences may be as much emotional as it is physical – it may even have a spiritual component. It is very difficult in my experience to separate the different strands. (Read More)