Awakenings (book)

{{About|the 1973 non-fiction book|the 1990 film|Awakenings|other uses|Awakening (disambiguation)}}

{{short description|1973 book by Oliver Sacks}}

{{Infobox book

| name = Awakenings

| title_orig =

| translator =

| image = Awakenings (Oliver Sacks book).jpg

| alt = Front cover: black background, title above author's name, below author's name is quote from Frank Kermode, "This doctor's report... is written in a prose of such beauty that you might well look in vain for its equal among living practitioners of belles lettres."

| caption = Front cover of first UK edition,
Duckworth & Co., 1973

| author = Oliver Sacks

| illustrator =

| cover_artist =

| country = United States

| language = English

| series =

| subject = Neurology, psychology

| genre = Case history

| publisher = Duckworth & Co., 1973
Pelican, 1976
Picador, 1991, 2006, 2010

| pub_date = 1973, revised 1976 and 1991

| media_type =

| pages = 408 (First edition)

| isbn = 0-375-70405-1

| dewey =

| congress =

| oclc = 21910570

| preceded_by = Migraine (1970)

| followed_by = A Leg to Stand On (1984)}}

Awakenings is a 1973 non-fiction book by Oliver Sacks. It recounts the life histories of those who had been victims of the 1920s encephalitis lethargica epidemic.{{Citation | first = Fiona | last = MacCarthy | authorlink=Fiona MacCarthy |newspaper = The Times | date = 5 December 1985 | title = Travels round a couch}} Sacks chronicles his efforts in the late 1960s to help these patients at the Beth Abraham Hospital (now Beth Abraham Center for Rehabilitation and Nursing) in the Bronx, New York.{{Cite web|title=Beth Abraham - Centers Health Care Nursing and Rehabilitation|url=http://beth-abraham-center.facilities.centershealthcare.org/|access-date=2020-10-19|website=Beth Abraham - Centers Health Care Nursing and Rehabilitation|language=en-US}} The treatment used the new drug L-DOPA, with the observed effects on the patients' symptoms being generally dramatic but temporary.

In 1982, Sacks wrote:

{{Quote |I have become much more optimistic than I was when I […] 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.{{Citation | title = Awakenings | first = Oliver | last = Sacks| date = 5 October 1999 | publisher = Knopf Doubleday Publishing | isbn = 0375704051 }}}}

The 1976 edition of the book is dedicated to the memory of Sacks's close friend the poet W. H. Auden, and bears an extract from Auden's 1969 poem The Art of Healing:

{{Quote |'Healing',

Papa would tell me,

'is not a science,

but the intuitive art

of wooing Nature.'}}

Auden himself called Awakenings a masterpiece.Sacks, O. (1976), Awakenings, Harmondsworth: Pelican Books, back cover blurb In 1974 the book won the Hawthornden Prize. {{cite web|url=https://www.librarything.com/bookaward/Hawthornden+Prize|title=Hawthornden Prize - Book awards - LibraryThing|website=www.librarything.com|accessdate=2 May 2018}}{{cite web|url=http://web.mnstate.edu/schwartz/hawthornden.htm|title=Hawthornden Prize|website=web.mnstate.edu|accessdate=2 May 2018}}