Blindness by José Saramago

Originally published in Portuguese in 1995, José Saramago’s Blindness is a post-apocalyptic novel about pandemic blindness and the consequent dissolution of a society. Both the novel and the author have received acclaim, and Saramago won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998. I liked Blindness, but I found it overrated.

Many readers will find this novel thoughtful and complex. The hero is a woman who does not lose her sight but nevertheless accompanies her suddenly blind husband when he is sent into quarantine. She is just a regular person, and yet she selflessly cares not only for her husband but also for the strangers in her ward. There is a temptation to simply read her as a straightforward Christ-like figure, until one reads Saramago’s W... Read More