Blindness

Ensaio sobre a cegueira · published 1995 · ISBN 9780156007757

José Saramago — José Saramago (1922 – 2010) — Portugal, writing in Portuguese. Awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1998.

“who with parables sustained by imagination, compassion and irony continually enables us once again to apprehend an elusory reality.” — The Nobel Committee citation

About José Saramago

A Portuguese novelist, the first from his country to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. His signature style — long sentences, sparse punctuation and dialogue run together without line breaks — immerses the reader in an unbroken flow of thought.

How it came to be

Published in 1995 as a dark parable about the fragility of civilization, written in the author's trademark style of long sentences, sparse punctuation and dialogue without line breaks. It is his most widely read work and a major reason for the 1998 Nobel.

What Blindness is about

An unnamed city is swept by an epidemic of "white blindness"; the sick are herded into a quarantine camp and society collapses into chaos and brutality. Only one woman — a doctor's wife — keeps her sight, quietly guiding a small band of survivors through the nightmare and holding on to what is human in them.

Analysis & legacy

Blindness is a dark parable about the fragility of civilization: a single epidemic of "white blindness" is enough to send society sliding into chaos and savagery. Saramago writes in his signature manner — long, unspooling sentences, sparse punctuation, dialogue without line breaks, characters left unnamed — forcing the reader to sink fully into the panic alongside them. Yet in the middle of this hell, the doctor's wife, the one person who can still see, keeps hold of a small light of compassion and dignity. Published in 1995, it is his most widely read work, distilling the skeptical yet humane vision that carried him to the 1998 Nobel.

Themes: Parable · Collapse of civilization · Human nature · The mob · Dignity

Rating: 4.3/5 from 42 ratings (Open Library).

What critics say

• It is a dark, appalling world, and by the way it is written, in the details that Saramago uses to such good effect, almost all the horrors of the 20th century are addressed. — Craig Nova, The Washington Post
• Adapted into a feature film chosen to open the 2008 Cannes Film Festival. — Fernando Meirelles, Cannes Film Festival 2008

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