BOOKS FROM NAMIBIASipping Dom Pérignon Through A Straw
by Eddie Ndopu
Description:
'Uncompromising... A masterful writer poised for even more great success' - Forest Whitaker, Academy award-winning actor 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 Pérignon 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. Searing, vulnerable and inspiring, Ndopu's remarkable journey to reach beyond ableism, reminds us never to let anyone else define our limits. 'Unflinching honesty and vulnerability... Prepare to be moved, enlightened, and profoundly touched' Sabrina Dhowre Elba, actress, model and UN Goodwill Ambassador
Reviews:
(6 months ago) |
28 Mar, 2025
You know when you read something and you begin to realize how much you don't know that you don't know? That's this book. Abstractly, I would have said, yeah, being the first African student with a degenerative disability to be admitted to the University of Oxford sounds challenging. However, obviously, in hindsight, the challenges I could imagine are only the most obvious ones at the tip of the iceberg. It's incredibly important to hear diverse perspectives.
I think this section of the book summarizes it the best, "Three helped put the frustration and discontent I'd been bottling up into perspective. I was beginning to think perhaps I had been the problem. That maybe I'd been asking too much. But in listening to Three vent, it struck me that the problem perhaps lay squarely with an upright system incapable of making room for nonupright success. I was therefore an outlier, forcing my way into recognition with the pioneering nature of my existence. Consequently, the answer wasn't to hold back in terms of voicing my needs, but to demand more institutional support. I mean, how else was I going to carry out a full course load and carve out a meaningful and inspiring graduate experience?"
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