This is an extraordinary account of a group of 20 patients, survivors of the great sleeping-sickness epidemic which swept the world in the 1920s, and the astonishing, explosive "awakening" effect they experienced 40 years later through a new drug, L-DOPA, administered by Dr Sacks. The stories he tells of these remarkable individuals are moving, often courageous and sometimes tragic.
Now hailed as a medical classic, Awakenings was first published in 1973 and won the Hawthornden Prize of that year. It has since inspired a TV documentary, radio and stage plays and a major feature film. For this revised edition the author has written much new material, including a section about Awakenings on stage and screen.
Oliver Sacks is a physician and the author of ten previous books, including most recently, Musicophilia. He lives in New York City, where he is Professor of Neurology and Psychiatry at Columbia University. He is the first, and only, Columbia University Artist, and is also a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians. In 2008, he was appointed Commander of the British Empire.
