Another Dragon--Ostrovsky:
"By Dec 1926 polyarthritis deprived him of almost all mobility and be became virtually bedridden. Nonetheless, in December 1927 he began a correspondence course at the Sverdlov Communist University in Moscow and he completed it in June 1929. In August, he lost his vision.
In 1930, undaunted by his paralysis and blindness, in Sochi, he began work on first novel, How The Steel Was Tempered. He also wrote articles for newspapers and journals and spoke often on the radio. In April 1932 he became a member of the Moscow branch of the Association of Proletarian Writers and in June 1934 he joined the Union of Soviet Writers. On October 1, 1935, he was awarded the Order of Lenin".
http://www.sovlit.com/bios/ostrovsky.html