Oliver Sacks, 2005 Markin-Flanagan Distinguished Visiting Writer

Oliver SacksBestselling author and world-renowned neurologist Oliver Sacks reads from his memoir, Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood, on Sunday, Apr. 3, 2005, at 7:30 pm at U of C's MacEwan Hall. The reading is free and open to the public.

In Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood, Dr. Sacks looks back to his childhood in wartime London, revealing his boyhood love of chemistry, photography, museums and books as the source of his life-long scientific curiosity.

Dr. Sacks is a world-renowned neurologist, humanist and author of astonishing case study histories. A master at creating compassionate drama from the uncanny dysfunctions of the brain, he is the author of Awakenings (1973), which inspired the 1990 Oscar-nominated Hollywood movie of the same name starring Robert De Niro and Robin Williams. Dr. Sacks is widely celebrated for his bestselling collection of case studies from the far borderlands of neurological experience, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat and An Anthropologist on Mars. He is a practicing physician and a frequent contributor to The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books.

Markin-Flanagan Writer-in-Residence Natalee Caple will give an introductory reading from her critically-acclaimed story collection The Heart Has Its Own Reason, which was influenced by Dr. Sacks' case studies.