Awakenings

The classic account of survivors of the sleeping-sickness during the great epidemic just after World War Iand their return to the world after decades of sleep. From the distinguished neurologist and the bestselling author of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat One of the most beautifully composed and moving works of our time." The Washington Post Awakeningswhich inspired the major motion picture starring Robert DeNiro and Robin Williamsis the remarkable story of a group of patients who contracted sleeping-sickness during the great epidemic just after World War I. Frozen for decades in a trance-like state, these men and women were given up as hopeless until 1969, when Dr. Oliver Sacks gave them the then-new drug L-DOPA, which had an astonishing, explosive, "awakening" effect. Dr. Sacks recounts the moving case histories of his patients, their lives, and the extraordinary transformations which went with their reintroduction to a changed world.