Christy Brown was born in 1932. He was one of 23 children born to a Dublin bricklayer. A victim of cerebral palsy, he could not control his speech or his movement, apart from his left foot. This enabled him to paint and type this autobiography. He later wrote an autobiographical novel, Down all the Days , which was very successful. His novels include A Promising Career , A Shadow on Summer and Wild Grow the Lillies , and he also published his poetry in Collected Poems. Christy Brown died in 1981.