Remembering Oliver Sacks: Lawrence Weschler with Robert Krulwich

Two reporters reflect on three decades of friendship with the neurologist and prolific author known as “the poet laureate of medicine.” 

Lawrence Weschler was a newly minted staff writer at The New Yorker when the magazine’s then-editor William Shawn green lit his idea for a profile of Dr. Oliver Sacks. Four years into this process, Sacks changed his mind, owning up to the fact that he couldn’t bear the idea of reading such a piece while he was alive. Still, the two remained close friends, and thirty years later, as he was dying, Sacks urged Weschler pick it up again. The result is Weschler’s biographical memoir of arguably one of the 20th century’s greatest medical writers.

Weschler, now a veteran of The New Yorker, author, and frequent contributor to NPR, is joined in conversation by Robert Krulwich, co-host of the Peabody Award-winning program Radiolab. Krulwich interviewed Sacks countless times on air, and counted him as one of the inspirations for the show, to which Sacks contributed story ideas and was a frequent guest.

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