Seeing Voices by Oliver Sacks

Synopsis

Like The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, this is a fascinating voyage into a strange and wonderful land, a provocative meditation on communication, biology, adaptation, and culture. In Seeing Voices, Oliver Sacks turns his attention to the subject of deafness, and the result is a deeply felt portrait of a minority struggling for recognition and respect — a minority with its own rich, sometimes astonishing, culture and unique visual language, an extraordinary mode of communication that tells us much about the basis of language in hearing people as well. Seeing Voices is, as Studs Terkel has written, "an exquisite, as well as revelatory, work."

Annotation

Covers a history of the deaf, the battle for acceptance in a hearing world and sign language as communication.

Booknews

Sacks (neurology, Einstein College of Medicine, and well-known as the author of The Man who mistook his wife for a hat) discusses the history, culture, and language of deaf people in the US. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Biography

Oliver Sacks is the author of Awakenings, The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat, and many other books, for which he has received numerous awards, including the Hawthornden Prize, a Polk Award, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and lives in New York City, where he is a practicing neurologist. He recently accepted a new position at Columbia University.