Jean-Dominique Bauby

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Jean-Dominique Bauby (April, 1952 - March 11, 1997) was a French journalist and author and editor of the magazine ELLE.

At the age of forty-three, on December 8, 1995, Bauby, a well-known Parisian, suffered a massive stroke which rendered his brain stem inactive. When he woke up twenty days later, he found he was mute and almost entirely paralysed; he could only move his head a 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 interlocuter read from a special alphabet which consisted of the letters reordered in accordance with their frequency in the French language. This made dictation more efficient. The book was published in France on March 6, 1997. Bauby died three days after. The cause of death remains unpublished.