Andrew McGahan is a bestselling Australian novelist, best known for his first novel Praise, and for his Miles Franklin Award-winning novel The White Earth.

Early life and education[link]

Born in Dalby, Queensland, McGahan was the ninth of ten children and grew up on a wheat farm. His schooling was at St Columba’s and St Mary’s colleges in Dalby, and then Marist College Ashgrove in Brisbane. He commenced an Arts degree at the University of Queensland, but dropped out halfway through, in 1985, to return to the family farm, and to commence his first novel – which was never published. He then spent the next few years working in a variety of jobs, until 1991, when he wrote his first published novel, Praise.

Literary career[link]

Novels[link]

In 1991 McGahan won the The Australian/Vogel Literary Award for unpublished novels with Praise — a semi-autobiographical account of a doomed, drug and alcohol-fuelled relationship. It became an Australian bestseller, and is often credited with launching the short-lived Grunge Lit or Dirty Realism movement – terminology that McGahan himself (along with most of the writers to whom it was applied) rejected.^[1]

In 1995 McGahan followed up with 1988, a prequel to Praise, partially based on time the author spent working at a lighthouse in the Northern Territory during Australia’s bicentennial year.

In 2000, having by his own admission struggled to come up with a third novel, McGahan produced his first work of non-autobiographical fiction: the crime novel Last Drinks, a reflection upon the endemic political corruption in Queensland in the 1980s, and the aftermath of the famous Fitzgerald Inquiry. It won a Ned Kelly Award for crime writing.

In 2004 McGahan published what would become one of his most successful and respected novels – The White Earth, an epic and gothic tale set in a fictionalised version of the wheat district in which he had grown up. It became another bestseller, and won a raft of literary awards, in particular the Miles Franklin Award.

In 2006 came Underground, an absurdist satire attacking the more extreme manifestations of the War on Terror in Australia. It received mixed reviews, causing conservative commentator Andrew Bolt to declare McGahan an "unhinged propagandist".^[2]

In 2009 came Wonders of a Godless World, a work entirely without dialogue or proper nouns and delving into such topics as geology, weather and immortality and madness. It won the 2009 Aurealis Award for Science Fiction.

In late 2011 McGahan published The Coming of the Whirlpool, which is the first book of a four volume young adult fantasy series of seafaring adventure, entitled Ship Kings. The second volume, due in 2012, will be called The Voyage of the Unquiet Ice.

Other Writing[link]

Stage[link]

In 1992, while serving a residency at the Queensland Theatre Company, McGahan wrote the play Bait, which was first performed by Renegade Theatre Company in Brisbane in 1995, directed by Shaun Charles, and which won a Mathilda award that year. The play is set in a grim Social Security mailing room and concludes the "Gordon Trilogy" – finishing off the story of Gordon Buchanan that was begun in the novels Praise and 1988.

In 2009 McGahan co-wrote and co-directed with Shaun Charles a stage version of The White Earth for La Boite Theatre Company in Brisbane.

Both stageplays, Bait and The White Earth, have been published by Playlab Press.

Screen[link]

McGahan wrote the screenplay for the feature film adaptation of Praise, directed by John Curran and released in 1999. The film won multiple awards, including an AFI Award to McGahan for the screenwriting.

Personal life[link]

McGahan currently lives in Melbourne, with his partner of many years, Liesje.

Awards[link]

• Praise – Australian/Vogel Award; Commonwealth Writers Prize South East Asia and South Pacific Region, First Novel.
• Praise Screenplay – AFI for Best Adapted Screenplay; Film Critics Circle of Australia Award for Best Adapted Screenplay; Queensland Premier’s Award, Best Drama Script.
• Last Drinks – Ned Kelly Award for Crime Writing, Best First Novel.
• The White Earth – Miles Franklin Award, Commonwealth Writers Prize South east Asia and South pacific Region, Age Book of the Year, Courier Mail Book of the Year.
• Wonders of a Godless World - Aurealis Award, Best Science Fiction Novel.

Bibliography[link]

Novels[link]

• Praise, Allen & Unwin, 1992, ISBN 978-1-86373-245-1
• 1988, Macmillan, 1998, ISBN 978-0-312-18032-4
• Last Drinks, Allen & Unwin, 2000, ISBN 978-1-86508-406-0
• The White Earth, Allen & Unwin, 2004, ISBN 978-1-74114-147-4
• Underground, Allen & Unwin, 2007, ISBN 978-1-74175-330-1
• Wonders of a Godless World Allen & Unwin, 2009, ISBN 978-1-74175-809-2

Drama[link]

• Bait (1992)

Screenplay[link]

• Praise (2000)

Notes[link]

Oliver Sacks
Sacks at the 2009 Brooklyn Book Festival
Born	(1933-07-09) 9 July 1933 (age 78) London, England
Years active	1966 – present
Known for	Popular books containing case studies of some of his patients
Profession	Physician
Specialism	Neurology

Oliver Wolf Sacks, CBE (born 9 July 1933, London, England), is a British neurologist, psychologist, writer, and amateur chemist who has spent the major portion of his career in the United States. He lives in New York City, and is professor of neurology and psychiatry at Columbia University, where he also holds the position of "Columbia Artist". He previously spent many years on the clinical faculty of Yeshiva University's Albert Einstein College of Medicine.

Sacks is the author of numerous bestselling books,^[1] including several collections of case studies of people with neurological disorders. His 1973 book Awakenings was adapted into an Academy Award-nominated film of the same name in 1990 starring Robin Williams and Robert De Niro.^[2] He, and his book Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain, were the subject of "Musical Minds", an episode of the PBS series Nova.

Early life[link]

Sacks was the youngest of four children born to a North London Jewish couple: Samuel Sacks, a physician (died June 1990),^[3] and Muriel Elsie Landau, one of the first female surgeons in England.^[4] Sacks had a large extended family, and among his first cousins are Israeli statesman Abba Eban, writer and director Jonathan Lynn, and economist Robert Aumann.

When Sacks was six years old, he and his brother Michael were evacuated from London to escape the Blitz, retreating to a boarding school in the Midlands, where he remained until 1943.^[4] He attended St Paul's School in London. During his youth, he was a keen amateur chemist, as recalled in his memoir Uncle Tungsten.^[5] He also learned to share his parents' enthusiasm for medicine and entered The Queen's College, Oxford University in 1951,^[4] from which he received a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in physiology and biology in 1954.^[6] At the same institution, in 1958 he went on to incept as a Master of Arts (MA) and earn a BM BCh, thereby qualifying to practice medicine. He undertook residencies and fellowship work at Mt. Zion Hospital in San Francisco and at UCLA.^[7]

Career[link]

After converting his British qualifications to American recognition (i.e., an MD as opposed to BM BCh), Sacks moved to New York, where he has lived and practiced neurology since 1965.

Sacks began consulting at chronic care facility Beth Abraham Hospital (now Beth Abraham Health Services), a member of CenterLight Health System in Bronx, NY, in 1966.^[8] At Beth Abraham, Sacks worked with a group of survivors of the 1920s sleeping sickness, encephalitis lethargica, who had been unable to move on their own for decades.^[8] These patients and his treatment of them were the basis of Sacks' book Awakenings.^[8]

Sacks served as an instructor and later clinical professor of neurology at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine from 1966 to 2007, and also held an appointment at the New York University School of Medicine from 1999 to 2007. In July 2007 he joined the faculty of Columbia University Medical Center as a professor of neurology and psychiatry.^[7] At the same time, he was appointed Columbia University's first "Columbia University Artist" at the University's Morningside campus, recognizing the role of his work in bridging the arts and sciences.

Since 1966 Sacks has served as a neurological consultant to various New York City nursing homes that are run by the Little Sisters of the Poor, and from 1966 to 1991, he was a consulting neurologist at Bronx Psychiatric Center.

Sacks' work at Beth Abraham helped provide the foundation on which the Institute for Music and Neurologic Function (IMNF) is built; Sacks is currently an honorary medical advisor.^[9] The Institute honored Sacks in 2000 with its first Music Has Power Award.^[10] The IMNF again bestowed a Music Has Power Award on Sacks in 2006 to commemorate "his 40 years at Beth Abraham and honor his outstanding contributions in support of music therapy and the effect of music on the human brain and mind".^[11]

Sacks remains a consultant neurologist to the Little Sisters of the Poor, and maintains a practice in New York City. He serves on the boards of the The Neurosciences Institute and the New York Botanical Garden.

Writing[link]

Beginning in 1970 Sacks wrote of his experience with neurological patients. His books have been translated into over 25 languages. In addition to his books, Sacks is a regular contributor to The New Yorker and The New York Review of Books, as well as other medical, scientific, and general publications.^[12][13][14] He was awarded the Lewis Thomas Prize for Writing about Science in 2001.^[15]

Sacks' work has been featured in a "broader range of media than those of any other contemporary medical author"^[16] and in 1990, The New York Times said he "has become a kind of poet laureate of contemporary medicine".^[17] His descriptions of people coping with and adapting to neurological conditions or injuries often illuminate the ways in which the normal brain deals with perception, memory and individuality.

Sacks considers that his literary style grows out of the tradition of 19th-century "clinical anecdotes," a literary style that included detailed narrative case histories. He also counts among his inspirations the case histories of the Russian neuropsychologist A. R. Luria.^[18]

Sacks describes his cases with a wealth of narrative detail, concentrating on the experiences of the patient (in the case of his A Leg to Stand On, the patient was himself). The patients he describes are often able to adapt to their situation in different ways despite the fact that their neurological conditions are usually considered incurable.^[19] His most famous book, Awakenings, upon which the 1990 feature film of the same name is based, describes his experiences using the new drug L-Dopa on Beth Abraham post-encephalitic patients.^[8] Awakenings was also the subject of the first documentary made (in 1974) for the British television series Discovery.

In his other books, he describes cases of Tourette syndrome and various effects of Parkinson's disease. The title article of The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat is about a man with visual agnosia^[20] and was the subject of a 1986 opera by Michael Nyman. The title article of An Anthropologist on Mars, which won a Polk Award for magazine reporting, is about Temple Grandin, a professor with high-functioning autism. Seeing Voices, Sacks' 1989 book, covers a variety of topics in deaf studies.

In his book The Island of the Colorblind Sacks writes about an island where many people have achromatopsia (total colorblindness, very low visual acuity and high photophobia), and describes the Chamorro people of Guam, who have a high incidence of a neurodegenerative disease known as Lytico-Bodig disease (a devastating combination of ALS, dementia, and parkinsonism). Along with Paul Alan Cox, Sacks has published papers suggesting a possible environmental cause for the cluster, namely the toxin beta-methylamino L-alanine (BMAA) from the cycad nut accumulating by biomagnification in the flying fox bat.^[21][22]

Sacks has sometimes faced criticism in the medical and disability studies communities. During the 1970s and 1980s, his book and articles on the "Awakenings" patients were criticized or ignored by much of the medical establishment, on the grounds that his work was not based on the quantitative, double-blind study model. His account of abilities of autistic savants has been questioned by the researcher Makoto Yamaguchi,^[23] and Daniel Tammet shared this view. According to Yamaguchi, Sacks' mathematical explanations are also irrelevant.^[24] Arthur K. Shapiro—described as "the father of modern tic disorder research"^[25]—referring to Sacks' celebrity status and that his literary publications received greater publicity than Shapiro's medical publications, said he is "a much better writer than he is a clinician".^[26] Howard Kushner's A Cursing Brain?: The Histories of Tourette Syndrome, says Shapiro "contrasted his own careful clinical work with Sacks' idiosyncratic and anecdotal approach to a clinical investigation".^[27]

More sustained has been the critique of his political and ethical positions. Although many characterize Sacks as a "compassionate" writer and doctor,^[28][29][30] others feel that he exploits his subjects.^[31] Sacks was called "the man who mistook his patients for a literary career" by British academic and disability-rights activist Tom Shakespeare,^[32] and one critic called his work "a high-brow freak show".^[33] Such criticism was echoed by a Sacks-like caricature played by Bill Murray in the film The Royal Tenenbaums.^[34] Sacks himself has stated "I would hope that a reading of what I write shows respect and appreciation, not any wish to expose or exhibit for the thrill... but it's a delicate business."^[35]

Honors[link]

Since 1996 Sacks has been a member of The American Academy of Arts and Letters (Literature).^[36] In 1999 he became a Fellow of the New York Academy of Sciences.^[37] Also in 1999, he became an Honorary Fellow at The Queen's College, Oxford.^[38] In 2002 he became Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences (Class IV—Humanities and Arts, Section 4—Literature)^[39] and he was awarded the 2001 Lewis Thomas Prize by Rockefeller University.^[40]

Sacks has been awarded honorary doctorates from the College of Staten Island (1991),^[6] Tufts University (1991),^[41] New York Medical College (1991),^[6] Georgetown University (1992),^[42] Medical College of Pennsylvania (1992),^[6] Bard College (1992),^[43] Queen's University (Ontario) (2001),^[44] Gallaudet University (2005),^[45] University of Oxford (2005),^[46] Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú (2006),^[47] and Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory (2008).

Oxford University awarded him an honorary Doctor of Civil Law degree in June 2005.^[48]

Sacks received the position "Columbia Artist" from Columbia University in 2007, a post that was created specifically for him. In this capacity he gains unconstrained access to the University, regardless of department or discipline.^[49]

Sacks was appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in the 2008 Queen's Birthday Honours.^[50]

84928 Oliversacks, a 2 miles (3.2 km)-diameter main-belt minor planet discovered in 2003, was named in his honor.^[51]

In February 2010 Sacks was named to the Freedom From Religion Foundation's Honorary Board of distinguished achievers.^[52]

Personal life[link]

For his entire life Sacks has had a condition known as prosopagnosia or face blindness.^[53] In a December 2010 interview Sacks discussed how he had also lost his stereoscopic vision the previous year due to a malignant tumor in his right eye. He now has no remaining vision in his right eye.^[54] His loss of stereo vision was recounted in his book The Mind's Eye, published in October 2010.^[55] Sacks discussed his struggles with prosopagnosia in an interview by Leslie Stahl on the March 18, 2012 episode of 60 Minutes.

Sacks has never married or lived with anyone and says that he is celibate.^[56] In a December 2001 interview he stated that he had not had a relationship in many years and has described his own shyness as "a disease".^[57] Sacks swims almost every day and has done so for decades. He discussed his work and his personal health issues in the June 28, 2011 BBC documentary Imagine.^[54]

Publications[link]

As main author[link]

• Migraine (1970)
• Awakenings (1973)
• A Leg to Stand On (1984) (Sacks's own experience, after an accident, of losing the awareness of one of his legs)
• The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat (1985)
• Seeing Voices: A Journey Into the World of the Deaf (1989) Online access
• An Anthropologist on Mars (1995)
• The Island of the Colorblind (1997) (total congenital color blindness in an island society, Guam disease)
• Uncle Tungsten: Memories of a Chemical Boyhood (2001)
• Oaxaca Journal (2002)
• Musicophilia: Tales of Music and the Brain (2007)
• The Mind's Eye (2010)

As contributor[link]

• A Man Without Words (1991) (foreword)

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Oliver Sacks

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Oliver Sacks

• Oliver Sacks' official website
• Oliver Sacks at Columbia University
• Oliver Sacks article archive at The New York Review of Books
• Oliver Sacks at TED Conferences
• Oliver Sacks on Charlie Rose
• Works by or about Oliver Sacks in libraries (WorldCat catalog)
• Oliver Sacks collected news and commentary at The New York Times
• Oliver Sacks on CNN in January 2011
• Oliver Sacks on Science Friday, National Public Radio