Sipping Dom Perignon Through A Straw

A memoir, penned with one good finger, about being profoundly disabled and profoundly successful.

Global humanitarian Eddie Ndopu was born with spinal muscular atrophy, a rare degenerative motor neuron disease affecting his mobility. He was told that he wouldn't live beyond age five and yet, Ndopu thrived. He grew up loving pop music and haute couture, lip syncing to the latest hits, and was the only wheelchair user at his school, where he flourished academically. By his late teens, he had become a sought-after speaker, travelling the world to give talks on disability justice. When he is later accepted on a full scholarship into Oxford University, he soon learns that it's not just the medical community he must defy - it's the educational one too.

In Sipping Dom Perignon Through a Straw , we follow Ndopu, sporting his oversized, bejewelled sunglasses, as he scales the mountain of success, only to find exclusion, discrimination, and neglect waiting for him on the other side. As he soars professionally, sipping champagne with world leaders, he continues to feel the loneliness and pressure of being the only one in the room. Determined to carve out his place in the world, he must challenge bias at the highest echelons of power and prestige.

About the Author

Eddie Ndopu is an award-winning, internationally acclaimed social justice advocate, humanitarian, public intellectual, and bona fide changemaker. Born in 1990 with Spinal Muscular Atrophy, and given only five years to live, he has gone on to become a beacon of hope and possibility for people with disabilities around the world. Eddie currently serves as Special Advisor to RTW Investments, a leading investor in scientific and medical innovation. He has also advised organizations such as the World Economic Forum, UN Women and Amnesty International. Eddie holds a Master's degree in Public Policy from Oxford University and is setting in motion plans to deliver a televised address to the UN from Space, in an effort to prove that our bodies, our minds, and the limitations placed upon them can defy gravity.