Joanne Harris

Joanne Harris (OBE, FRSL) is the internationally bestselling author of CHOCOLAT (1999) and dozens of other novels, novellas, short story collections, scripts and works of non-fiction. She holds honorary doctorates from Huddersfield University and the University of Sheffield, and is an honorary Fellow of St Catharine’s College, Cambridge. She has judged a number of literary prizes, including the Orange (Women’s) Prize, the Whitbread (Costa) Prize, and has several times served as judge for the Jasmine Awards. She has a form of synaesthesia, in which colours in bright light trigger scents. She lives with her husband in Yorkshire.

Scent Memory

The scent of the Marseille soap my mother used to buy from the markets in France, in big blocks cut to measure with a knife. Its scent was olive, bay laurel, rosemary, and sunshine, and the ozone scent of the sea. It always brings back childhood memories, wherever I happen to be in the world.

Headshot: Kyte Photography