Victoria Finlay

I'm a journalist, writer and occasional radio presenter. I first became obsessed with colours when I was eight years old, and my father took me to see a stained glass window in Chartres cathedral and explained how it was created 800 years ago and we were no longer able to make that particular cobalt blue. Many years later I gave up my day job as Arts Editor of the South China Morning Post in Hong Kong - where I lived for 12 years - to write "Colour: Travels Through The Paintbox". My second book followed in 2005, called "Jewels: A Secret History" (though in UK hardback it was originally titled "Buried Treasure". A publisher thing.)

In the course of my research, I travelled to the underground opal churches of outback Australia, interviewed retired pearl fishermen in Scotland, crawled through Cleopatra's long-deserted emerald mines, climbed the "blue mountains" of Afghanistan where Michelangelo's finest ultramarine paint came from, and tried my hand at gem cutting in the dusty Sri Lankan "city of gems" where Marco Polo once bartered for sapphires.

I moved back to the UK in 2003 and now live near Bath, working for an international environmental charity and writing for various UK and international publications. I recently appeared as a guest in the first series of BBC Radio 4's "Museum of Curiosities", hosted by John Lloyd (QI) and Bill Bailey; I was talking about Pliny the Elder. In 2009 "Colour" was chosen by Folio to be their gift book of the year. They completely and beautifully redesigned it, spotted a couple of Latin errors, and most splendidly added more than 100 stunning colour illustrations. It is what my Colour book always wanted to be.