American writer David Stuart MacLean Photo: Heather Eidson
Twelve years ago, American Writer David Stuart MacLean was in India on a Fulbright Scholarship when he had an adverse reaction to anti-malarial medication which wiped his memory clean. Local police thought he was a 'pharmaceutical tourist' on heroin and he was admitted to a psychiatric hospital.
He couldn't remember his family, and his mind fabricated a whole new identity.
In his memoir The Answer to the Riddle is Me David Stuart MacLean tells what is it like to forget everything, and about his long battle back to good health and regaining his memory.
On Nine to Noon, he describes amnesia as "giving yourself over to whoever is walking by, and making them in charge of your memory'.
