The Man With A Shattered World

Luria presents a compelling portrait of a man’s heroic struggle to regain his mental faculties. A soldier named Zasetsky, wounded in the head at the battle of Smolensk in 1943, found himself unable to recall his recent past or speak, read, or write without difficulty. Woven throughout his first-person account are interpolations by Luria himself.

The second in New York Times bestselling author duo Amie Kaufman and Meagan Spooner's sweeping science fiction Starbound Trilogy is an unforgettable story of love and forgiveness in a world torn apart by war, a "sci-fi Romeo and Juliet" (Booklist). Jubilee Chase and Flynn Cormac should never have met. Lee is captain of the forces sent to Avon to crush the terraformed planet's rebellious colonists, and she has her own reasons for hating the insurgents. Whereas Flynn is leading the rebellion against the powerful corporate conglomerate that make their fortune by terraforming uninhabitable planets across the universe and recruiting colonists to make the planets livable, and rule with an iron fist and unrealized promises. Desperate for any advantage against the military occupying his home, Flynn does the only thing that makes sense when he and Lee cross paths: he returns to base with her as prisoner. But as his fellow rebels prepare to execute this tough-talking girl with nerves of steel, Flynn makes another choice that will change him forever. He and Lee escape base together, caught between two sides in a senseless war.

Russian psychologist A. R. Luria presents a compelling portrait of a man’s heroic struggle to regain his mental faculties. A soldier named Zasetsky, wounded in the head at the battle of Smolensk in 1943, suddenly found himself in a frightening world: he could recall his childhood but not his recent past; half his field of vision had been destroyed; he had great difficulty speaking, reading, and writing. Much of the book consists of excerpts from Zasetsky’s own diaries. Laboriously, he records his memories in order to reestablish his past and to affirm his existence as an intelligent being. Luria’s comments and interpolations provide a valuable distillation of the theory and techniques that guided all of his research. His “digressions” are excellent brief introductions to the topic of brain structure and its relation to higher mental functions.

A young soldier suffered a severe brain injury resulting in impaired vision, loss of memory and loss of the ability to speak, read and write. As though he were a child, he has to relearn. Professor Luria worked with him for over twenty years, together building a life for him.