Genesis of Artistic Creativity

Michael Fitzgerald is Henry Marsh Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at Trinity College, Dublin. A Clinical and Research Consultant to the Irish Society for Autism and an Honorary Member of the Northern Ireland Institute of Human Relations, he has a doctorate in the area of autism and has been a researcher in this area since 1973. He trained at St. Patrick's Hospital Dublin, Chicago Medical School, and The Maudsley Hospital and the National Hospital for Nervous Diseases in London. He has clinically diagnosed over 900 individuals with autism and Asperger's Syndrome and has served on the Government Task Force on Autism and the Family. He has contributed to National and International Journals on autism and is the author of over 120 publications. This is his thirteenth book.

• Acknowledgements. Introduction. Part I. Asperger's Syndrome and Writers.1. Jonathan Swift (1667-1745). 2. Hans Christian Andersen (1805-75). 3. Herman Melville (1819-91). 4. Lewis Carroll (1832-98). 5. William Butler Yeats (1865-1939). 6. Arthur Conan Doyle (1859-1930). 7. George Orwell (1903-50). 8. Bruce Chatwin (1940-89). Part II. Asperger's Syndrome and Philosophers. 9 . Spinoza (1632-77). 10. Immanuel Kant (1724-1804). 11. Simone Weil (1909-43). 12. A.J. Ayer (1910-89). Part III. Asperger's Syndrome and Musicians.13. Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-91). 14. Ludwig van Beethoven (1770-1827). 15. Erik Satie (1866-1925). 16. Béla Bártok (1881-1945). 17. Glenn Gould (1932-82). Part IV. Asperger's Syndrome and Painters. 18. Vincent van Gogh (1853-90). 19. Jack B. Yeats (1871-1957). 20. L.S. Lowry (1887-1976). 21. Andy Warhol (1928-87). Conclusion. References. Index.

The book will leave readers much better informed both about Asperger Syndrome and artistic creativity, but the recurrent sense of tragedy in these lives raises an even deeper question as to why suffering and struggle - either with self or others - seems to characterises the reach of greatness. It is almost as if genius is not something that naturally arises out of normal humanity but despite it.