Send in the Idiots

Book excerpt: _______________ 'This remarkable piece of true-life storytelling takes as its theme not disability, but humanity' - Independent 'A fascinating read, balancing one's desire for scientific understanding with the author's own remarkable journey' - Tim Pears 'It is through Nazeer's frank portrayal of these lives that we come to understand a little better what it is to live with autism' - Daily Express _______________ A remarkable, elegantly written portrait of five autistic men and women, and what their struggles and triumphs reveal about this baffling condition and about us all When he was four years old Kamran Nazeer was enrolled in a small school in New York alongside other children diagnosed with autism. Here they received care that was at the cutting edge of developmental psychology. Kamran is now a policy adviser in Whitehall - but what of the others? With rare perception, he tells of their lives: the speechwriter unable to make eye contact, the courier who gets upset if anyone touches his bicycle, the suicidal depressive, and the computer engineer who communicates difficult emotions through the use of hand puppets. _______________ 'Fascinating not only for its insight into autism but for what it reveals about the way human beings understand the world. Part science, part philosophy and part personal account, Nazeer's triumph is that he balances explanation with human stories in a way that is lucid and, at times, deeply moving' - Scotsman