Camila Batmanghelidjh was born two-and-a-half months prematurely to a wealthy Iranian-Belgian family in Tehran.
Weighing less than a kilo, she was not expected to survive.
She did survive her premature birth, but with many health problems. “That’s why I’m large. I also had some learning difficulties. I’m fluent in speech but writing is difficult. I thought I was thick. I couldn’t tie my own laces till I was 12.”
But she had an appetite for learning: at nine, she enrolled her mother in a psychological society so that she could read the journals.
I hope you find time to read what I wrote for the Financial Times when I first met Camila.