The Diving Bell and the Butterfly

It is hard to believe that something so utterly horrific could result in something as beautiful as this small memoir. Once an editor of the style magazine Elle, Jean-Dominique Bauby was in the prime of his life when a devastating stroke put him in a twenty-day coma, from which he “recovered” to find himself trapped within his own body, having no more control over it than to blink one eyelid. With only this (and the painstaking attention of Claude Mendibil, a freelance editor to whom the book is jointly dedicated) at his disposal, Bauby endeavored to communicate his thoughts and feelings with an eloquence now physically denied him; these are the butterflies within his diving bell.