'Awakenings' Author Oliver Sacks' First of Final Articles Published Posthumously

Fans still mourn the death of British neurologist and writer Oliver Sacks, who passed away on Aug 30. But even after the "Awakenings" author has succumbed to cancer, his most loyal of supporters can still look forward to his never-before-released works. In fact, one of these considered final writings has now been published for the world to see.

Sacks' essay titled "Urge" is set to be published in September 24 issue of The New York Review of Books, where he was "a longstanding contributor of thirty essays" there, as the publication itself described in an introduction to the 1500-word essay, which discussed the condition of one of his patients back in 2006.

The patient in question is Walter B, which Sacks called "an affable, outgoing man of forty-nine." He was diagnosed with Klüver-Bucy syndrome, "which manifests itself as insatiable eating and sexual drive, sometimes combined with irritability and distractibility, all on a purely physiological basis."

"As a teenager, following a head injury, he had developed epileptic seizures-these first took the form of attacks of déjà vu that might occur dozens of times a day. Sometimes he would hear music that no one else could hear. He had no idea what was happening to him and fearing ridicule or worse, kept his strange experiences to himself," Sacks further wrote as he introduced Walter.

Kate Edgar, Sacks' assistant, wrote on his official website that apart from playing the piano and enjoying smoked salmon among others, the neurologist also worked on "completing several articles" before he died. As per The Guardian, a second essay will follow "Urge" in New Yorker. He, however, still had "several nearly completed books and a vast archive of correspondence, manuscripts and journals."

Sacks also founded the Oliver Sacks Foundation before he passed away. Edgar describes it as a "non-profit organization devoted to increasing understanding of the human brain and mind through the power of narrative non-fiction and case histories." The established goals included the publication, digitization and preservation of Sacks' writings so that they will reach as many people as possible.

Back in February, Sacks opened up about his terminal cancer and being face to face with death. When he knew of his illness earlier this year, he admitted in an essay titled "Sabbath" published in New York Times that he was glad that he knew nothing about it when he finished his memoir "On the Move" in December last year.

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