Awakenings is a 1973 non-fiction book

Non-fiction

Non-fiction is the form of any narrative, account, or other communicative work whose assertions and descriptions are understood to be fact...

 by Oliver Sacks

Oliver Sacks

Oliver Wolf Sacks, CBE , is a British neurologist and psychologist residing in New York City. He is a professor of neurology and psychiatry at Columbia University, where he also holds the position of Columbia Artist...

. It recounts the life histories of those who had been victims of the 1920s encephalitis lethargica

Encephalitis lethargica

Encephalitis lethargica or von Economo disease is an atypical form of encephalitis. Also known as "sleepy sickness" , it was first described by the neurologist Constantin von Economo in 1917. The disease attacks the brain, leaving some victims in a statue-like condition, speechless and motionless...

 epidemic. Sacks chronicles his efforts in the late 1960s to help these patients at the Beth Abraham Hospital (now Beth Abraham Health Services) in the Bronx, New York. The treatment used the then-new drug L-DOPA.

In 1982, Dr. Sacks wrote:

• I have become much more optimistic than I was when I first wrote Awakenings, for there has been a significant number of patients who, following the vicissitudes of their first years on L-DOPA, came to do - and still do - extremely well. Such patients have undergone an enduring awakening, and enjoy possibilities of life which had been impossible, unthinkable, before the coming of L-DOPA. http://www.amazon.com/Awakenings-Oliver-Sacks/dp/0375704051

The book inspired a play by Harold Pinter

Harold Pinter

Harold Pinter, CH, CBE was a Nobel Prize–winning English playwright and screenwriter. One of the most influential modern British dramatists, his writing career spanned more than 50 years. His best-known plays include The Birthday Party , The Homecoming , and Betrayal , each of which he adapted to...

 (A Kind of Alaska

A Kind of Alaska

A Kind of Alaska is a one-act play written in 1982 by Harold Pinter , the 2005 Nobel Laureate in Literature.-Summary:A middle-aged woman named Deborah, who has been in a comatose state for thirty years as a result of contracting sleeping sickness, awakes with a mind still that of a sixteen-year-old...

) in 1982, performed as part of a trilogy of Pinter's plays entitled Other Places, and a documentary television episode, the pilot of the British television programme Discovery. It was also made into a 1990 Oscar-nominated film, Awakenings

Awakenings

Awakenings is a 1990 American drama film based on Oliver Sacks's 1973 memoir Awakenings. It tells the true story of British neurologist Oliver Sacks, fictionalized as American Malcolm Sayer and portrayed by Robin Williams who, in 1969, discovers beneficial effects of the then-new drug L-Dopa...

starring Robert De Niro

Robert De Niro

Robert De Niro, Jr. is an American actor, director and producer. His first major film roles were in Bang the Drum Slowly and Mean Streets, both in 1973...

 and Robin Williams

Robin Williams

Robin McLaurin Williams is an American actor and comedian. Rising to fame with his role as the alien Mork in the TV series Mork and Mindy, and later stand-up comedy work, Williams has performed in many feature films since 1980. He won the Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his performance...

.

External links

• Other Places – Listed in "Plays" section of haroldpinter.org. [Includes photograph of playbill, production details, and retyped performance review by Alan Jenkins, originally published in TLS
  The Times Literary Supplement
  The Times Literary Supplement is a weekly literary review published in London by News International, a subsidiary of News Corporation.-History:...
  
  entitled "The Withering of Love", reproduced with permission.]