From the New York Times:

Acclaimed Irish author and poet Christopher Nolan, 43, died Friday in Dublin. Nolan produced a highly praised volume of verse and short stories at the age of 15, then went on to take the prestigious Whitbread Prize for his autobiography, Under the Eye of the Clock.

Nolan had cerebral palsy, and was unable to speak and virtually unable to move voluntarily. Family members said the cause of death was food trapped in his airway.

Nolan had been able to communicate only through eye movements until the age of 11, when a new drug was found to relax his neck muscles. He began writing through the use of a “unicorn stick” strapped to his forehead, typing a letter at a time on a keyboard as his mother held his chin in her hands.

A prominent Los Angeles producer wanted to make a film of Mr. Nolan’s life story. Mr. Nolan turned the offer down.

“I want to highlight the creativity within the brain of a cripple,” he wrote to the producer, “and while not attempting to hide the crippledom I want instead to filter all sob-storied sentiment from his portrait and dwell upon his life, his laughter, his vision, and his nervous normality. Can we ever see eye-to-eye on that schemed scenario?”

(Photo from the New York Times)

This entry was posted on Wednesday, February 25th, 2009 at 10:04 pm and is filed under arts/music, books, cerebral palsy, obits, physical disabilities. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.