Flowers for Algernon

Yes, Daniel Keyes first published 'Flowers for Algernon' as a novelette in The Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction in 1959, where it won the Hugo Award for Best Short Story. Keyes expanded it into the full 1966 novel, which then won the Nebula Award for Best Novel.

The novel was adapted into the 1968 film 'Charly,' starring Cliff Robertson, who won the Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance. The story has also been adapted into stage plays, a musical, and a 2000 television film starring Matthew Modine.

Algernon is a white laboratory mouse who undergoes the same experimental intelligence-enhancing surgery as the protagonist, Charlie Gordon. The mouse's eventual cognitive decline foreshadows Charlie's own fate and serves as the story's central tragic device.

The entire novel is told through Charlie's own progress reports, which begin with simple misspelled language before an experimental surgical procedure raises his IQ dramatically. As his intelligence peaks and then begins to decline, the journal entries themselves reflect his shifting cognitive state, making the reader experience his transformation firsthand.