Frida Kahlo and me: how the artist shaped my life as an amputee

Writer Emily Rapp Black lost her leg aged four. In her new memoir, Frida Kahlo and My Left Leg, she explains how the work of the Mexican artist, also an amputee, helped her develop a better relationship with her body

• Scroll down for a Q&A with Emily Rapp Black

Desnudo de Frida Kahlo by Diego Rivera hangs in a small museum in Guanajuato, Mexico. In this portrait, Frida's torso is taut and slim; the sides of her waist curve inward, creating perfect hollows for each of your hands. Her breasts are slightly lifted, because her arms are clasped behind her head; her elbows are the pointed tips of wings. Her shoulders look solid, strong, able. This is a body that is loved, admired, desired.

This lithograph was made in 1930, after polio disfigured her right foot in 1913 when she was six years old; after the 1925 streetcar accident that broke her spinal column, her collarbone, her ribs, her pelvis, created 11 fractures in her already weakened leg, crushed her foot and left her shoulder permanently out of joint. During the 29 years between her accident and her death in 1954, Frida had 32 operations; was required to wear a corset every day from 1944 onward; and had her leg amputated because of gangrene in 1953. It was this final operation that likely led to the complications that eventually killed her. Speculation of suicide remains.