Ernest Hemingway had his typewriter and J.K. Rowlings has her handwritten notebooks, but for Chen Hong (
Chen, a seasoned photojournalist who was stricken with an incurable degenerative muscle disease in 1999, made history on Saturday when his fifth novel broke the Guinness world record for the most words published using eye-blinking dictation.
The novel, Bitterness: Another Type of Fulfillment, which brought the author's word count to 190,000 characters, chronicles his decade-long battle with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).
PHOTO: LIN CHENG-KUN, TAIPEI TIMES
ALS is a progressive neurodegenerative disease that attacks nerve cells in the brain stem and the spinal cord. The disease gradually leads to full paralysis and is eventually fatal.
Yet, for the vast majority of people who are stricken with the condition, their minds remain lucid.
The only way Chen can communicate is through the aid of a transparent board displaying the phonetic symbol system bopomofo, also called zhuyin.
To communicate, Chen first selects a phonetic symbol by blinking when his assistant points to the desired symbol. He then indicates the tone of the Chinese character he would like to express through the same method and finally selects the character.
During a Saturday night award ceremony at a Taipei hospital, Chen expressed his gratitude to his friends and family, and especially his wife, Liu Hsueh-hui (
"I have nothing but thanks. I feel very bad for weighing on everyone," he said.
He received an award as he lay in his hospital bed wearing an oxygen mask.
A tearful Liu told the audience that in her 50 years of marriage to Chen, her love for him had only grown.
Media reported on Saturday night that several companies had purchased more than 1,000 copies of Chen's book to donate to correctional facilities nationwide to encourage prisoners to face the difficulties in their lives.
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