Jean-Dominique Bauby
Jean-Dominique Bauby (April 1952 – March 9, 1997) was a French journalist and author and editor of the magazine ELLE. [1]
At the age of 43, on December 8, 1995, Bauby, a well-known Parisian, suffered a stroke.
When he woke up twenty days later, he found he was almost entirely speechless; he could only move his mouth little, grunt, and blink his left eyelid. This rare condition is called Locked-In syndrome.
Despite his condition, he authored the book The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by blinking when the correct letter was reached by a person slowly reciting the alphabet over and over again. Bauby had to compose and edit the book entirely in his head, and convey it one letter at a time. He had his interlocutor read from a special alphabet which consisted of the letters ordered in accordance with their frequency in the French language. This made dictation more efficient. The book was published in France in March, 1997. Bauby died just two days later of heart failure. He is buried in a family grave at the Pere Lachaise cemetery in Paris, France. [2]
In 2007, painter-director Julian Schnabel released a film version of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. It starred actor Mathieu Amalric as Bauby and won Schnabel the best director prize at Cannes.
  | This article about a French writer or poet is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. |