the diving bell and the butterfly by jean dominique bauby

This book is a lasting testament to his life. Jean-Dominique Bauby died two days after the French publication of The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. Again and again, he returns to an 'inexhaustible reservoir of sensations', keeping in touch with himself and the life around him. Fed only intravenously, he imagines preparing and tasting the full flavor of delectable dishes. In magical sequences, he imagines traveling to other places and times and of lying next to the woman he loves. He explains the joy and deep sadness of seeing his children and of hearing his aged father's voice on the phone. In the same way, he was able, eventually, to compose this extraordinary book.īy turns wistful, mischievous, angry, and witty, Bauby bears witness to his determination to live as fully in his mind as he had been able to do in his body.

After 20 days in a coma, Bauby awoke into a body which had all but stopped working: only his left eye functioned, allowing him to see and, by blinking it, to make clear that his mind was unimpaired.Īlmost miraculously, he was soon able to express himself in the richest detail, dictating a word at a time, blinking to select each letter as the alphabet was recited to him slowly, over and over again. By the end of the year, he was also the victim of a rare kind of stroke to the brain stem. The diary of Jean-Dominique Bauby who, with his left eyelid (the only surviving muscle after a massive stroke) dictated a remarkable book about his. In 1995, 44-year-old Jean-Dominique Bauby was the editor-in-chief of French Elle, the father of two young children, and a man known and loved for his wit, his style, and his impassioned approach to life. Jean-Dominique Bauby, a French fashion magazine editor and the author of the international best seller on which The Diving Bell and the Butterfly is based, suffered an even more extreme form.

The diving bell and the butterfly by jean dominique bauby