Paul Broks is a neu­ropsy­chol­o­gist based at the Uni­ver­sity of Ply­mouth. He gained recog­ni­tion as a writer with his first book, Into the Silent Land (At­lantic Books, 2003) which mixed neu­ro­log­i­cal case sto­ries, fic­tion and mem­oir in an ex­tended med­i­ta­tion on self­hood and the brain. A sec­ond book, The Laws of Magic, ex­plor­ing mem­ory and imag­i­na­tion, is forth­com­ing. Paul’s the­atre work in­cludes two plays, On Ego (Oberon Books, 2005) and On Emo­tion (Oberon Books, 2008) co-writ­ten with the writer/di­rec­tor Mick Gor­don for Soho The­atre, and he has re­cently com­pleted a new play com­mis­sion for the Royal Shake­speare Com­pany.  His film work in­cludes the writ­ing and nar­ra­tion of Mar­tino Un­strung, a fea­ture-length doc­u­men­tary about the jazz gui­tar vir­tu­oso, Pat Mar­tino (Dir. Ian Knox; Six­teen Films, 2008). He is cur­rently col­lab­o­rat­ing with the film­maker Hugh Hud­son on a doc­u­men­tary about brain in­jury. Paul is a reg­u­lar con­trib­u­tor to the cul­ture and cur­rent af­fairs mag­a­zine, Prospect.