Ann Wroe, obituaries editor for The Economist, reflects on the art and impossibility of capturing life on the page. Through her experiences and through people she has known, studied, or merely glimpsed in windows, she movingly explores what makes a life and how that life lingers after.

Ann Wroe is the obituaries editor of The Economist and has written its weekly obituary for two decades. She is the author of eight previous works of non-fiction, including biographies of Pontius Pilate (shortlisted for the Samuel Johnson Award and the W.H. Smith Award), Perkin Warbeck, Shelley, Orpheus (winner of the Criticos Prize) and St. Francis. Lifescapes is her most recent book and was shortlisted for the James Tait Black Prize for Biography. She lives in Brighton and London.