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Irgendwo, in einer namenlosen Stadt, ist eine Epidemie ausgebrochen. Mehr und mehr Menschen verlieren aus unerklärlichen Gründen ihr Augenlicht. Der Staat greift ein, die Erblindeten werden in ein leerstehendes Irrenhaus gebracht und müssen dort unter unmenschlichen Bedingungen leben. Soldaten riegeln das Gelände ab und lassen niemanden hinaus. In dieser Situation scheinen die letzten moralischen Skrupel der Insassen dem nackten Überlebenskampf zum Opfer zu fallen. Doch gibt es eine Sehende unter ihnen, die die Krankheit nur vorgetäuscht hat, um bei ihrem Mann bleiben zu können. Mit ihrer Hilfe könnte der Ausbruch gelingen.

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A chillingly powerful dystopian vision from one of Europe´s greatest writers

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Saramago guides readers through an immersive experience of a terrifying predicament.

A driver waiting at the traffic lights goes blind. An opthamologist tries to diagnose his distinctive white blindness, but is affected before he can read the textbooks. It becomes a contagion, spreading throughout the city. Trying to stem the epidemic, the authorities herd the afflicted into a mental asylum where the wards are terrorised by blind thugs. And when fire destroys the asylum, the inmates burst forth and the last links with a supposedly civilised society are snapped.

No food, no water, no government, no obligation, no order. This is not anarchy, this is blindness.

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"Extraordinary...a tour de force of thought-experiment and feeling-experiment" Observer

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José Saramago is one of the most important international writers of the last hundred years. Born in Portugal in 1922, he was in his sixties when he came to prominence as a writer with the publication of Baltasar and Blimunda. A huge body of work followed, translated into more than forty languages, and in 1998 he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature. Saramago died in June 2010.

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