Blindness

An enchanting tale of bereavement from Nobel Prize-winning novelist José Saramago

An epidemic of "white blindness" strikes a metropolis, striking no one unaffected. The blind are imprisoned by the authorities in an abandoned mental hospital, but there, thieves steal food rations and beat up women, holding everyone hostage. One eyewitness to this nightmare leads her charges—a kid without a mother, a girl wearing dark spectacles, and a dog of tears, among others—through the desolate streets in a parade that is as unsettling as the surroundings are terrifying. Blindness reclaims the ancient tale of a plague while conjuring up the vivid and unsettling atrocities of the twentieth century, giving readers a striking picture of the human soul tied by both thrilling strength and frailty.