قصة الكتاب :
Blindness is a novel by Jose Saramago published in Portuguese in 1995 and translated later into English in October 1997. Saramago won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998, and this book was noted by the committee, among other works, while announcing the award. rnThe story has been described by almost every reader as being brilliantly conceived and narrated. The plot centres around a strange epidemic of ‘white blindness’ that hits people living in an unnamed location. The premise on which the plot is built is fertile ground for discovery. Discovery of what people are capable of turning into and doing when their everyday world gets upended. Blindness traces the social collapse that is triggered by an epidemic where an increasing number of people turn blind suddenly and continue to do so at an alarming pace. At the beginning, the government resorts to imposed quarantine in order to limit the contagion. However, when all efforts at quarantine fail and institutions start collapsing one after another, things take a turn for the worse. Saramago traces the entire plot through the lives of a small group of individuals who have to navigate their way through the chaos they find themselves facing. However, the characters are not given names but just generic labels like ‘the thief’, ‘the first blind man’ etc. By doing this, the story refuses to be tied down to a particular people or place, and has universal appeal. A large part of the story is set in the hospital where the people are quarantined. They are denied access to even basic necessities like food, medicine and clean water. In these circumstances, the people bond together for self-protection and stronger groups start taking control of the weak, who willingly give up their rights in exchange for promises of security.rnSaramago in Blindness describes the potential of an unexpected disaster to bring out the best and worst in people, be it the misguided actions of the government, the sensible ministrations of the doctor or the bravery displayed by his wife who incidentally remains the only person in the story whom blindness does not touch but pretends to be blind anyway so that she can keep her husband company. She is the sole guide the reader has in the story. In a sense, she is the only likely ‘hero’ this story can claim to have. Despite the explicit manner in which accounts of mass cruelty have been elaborated in this book, it still retains a peculiar power to move and persuade. In a city where everyone is blind, everyone is lost. The underlying message that we get is how important it is to have ‘sight’ in order to maintain civilization.rn