1995
Blindness
José Saramago · 1922–2010 · Portugal
Originally Ensaio sobre a cegueira (Portuguese) · translated by Giovanni Pontiero
Why it matters
An unexplained epidemic of white blindness sweeps a city, and the social contract rots within days. Saramago's pitiless parable (told in flooding, punctuation-defying sentences) of how thin the veneer of civilization is.
At a glance
dystopianpolitical novel
Difficulty 7/10medium pace326 pagesUnbroken paragraphs with no quotation marks or named characters strain sustained reading.
Deep dive
A city goes blind in waves, an epidemic with no cause and no cure, except for the one woman who never stops seeing what everyone else is doing to each other.
Where to go next
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Clarice Lispector · 1977The Hour of the StarLvl 7Slow burn
Christa Wolf · 1968The Quest for Christa T.Lvl 7Slow burn