Jason Arday claimed he survived ‘unrecoverable’ car accident, locked-in syndrome and testicular cancer in newly surfaced book proposal

A book proposal for Professor Jason Arday's forthcoming memoir contained dramatic claims of surviving locked-in syndrome and testicular cancer that do not appear in the published version, The Atlantic has reported. The discrepancies emerge days after Arday resigned as Cambridge's youngest black professor amid a plagiarism investigation, adding fresh scrutiny to a string of extraordinary personal stories he has told over the years.

The 2024 proposal for Great and Unfortunate Things, out next week, described Arday, 41, being hit by a car as a teenager and spending months in a coma with locked-in syndrome, during which doctors allegedly told his parents to withdraw life support. The final memoir instead has him simply finishing school and sitting exams at that time, while a claimed testicular cancer diagnosis in the proposal becomes two brain tumours in the book. Other details also shift between versions, including the ages of attackers in an assault story, the timing of a suicide attempt relative to the pandemic, and the identity of a woman in Brazil who Arday said prophesied his future. Cambridge, Arday and publisher Simon & Schuster have been contacted for comment, while the Met Police commissioner has separately admitted officers "dropped the ball" after a four-month probe into a journalist investigating Arday's record.