The Island of the Colorblind

Color blindness in animals is often balanced by hearing, smell, and other senses. But what does it mean—to be human and, for your entire life, see the world as a black-and-white film strip?

Oliver Sacks, combining the precision of a scientist with the skill of a storyteller, turns his attention to a rare phenomenon: he studies a community of hereditary color-blind people on the islands of Micronesia, whose perception has remained unchanged for centuries.

Many animals are known not to distinguish colors while still navigating perfectly well thanks to enhanced sensory abilities. But what is it like for people to exist without colors—not to see the red sunset, the turquoise sea, the gold of wheat fields, and to perceive the beauty of the world only in shades of gray?

In the book «The Island of the Colorblind,» Sacks describes a journey to distant Micronesian islands where generations of residents live with inherited color blindness. How do they experience the surrounding reality? Does it affect their feelings, imagination, and thinking? What fills the gap left by the absence of color? And, most importantly, why did this “black-and-white” vision arise—can it be altered, and can medicine help?