Blindness by José Saramago is the subject of the first reflection in my Nobel literature project. Saramago, a Portuguese author, was the Nobel laureate in literature in 1998. Blindness was published in Portuguese (as Ensaio sobre a cegueira, or Essay on Blindness) in 1995 and English in 1997.

I read Blindness in 2011. My memory is a bit hazy, but I remember how the book made me feel, which was somewhat bleak but at peace in the end. I borrowed the paperback Harvest Book edition, translated by Giovanni Pontiero, from the Rice University library. After reading it, I looked up some information about Saramago and was surprised to find that he was Portuguese and not Latin American. Blindness reminded me of magical realism works by Latin American authors, and I had just kind of assumed that he was Latin American.

The novel felt a bit like a morality play to me, but subsequent research has led me to believe that “allegory” is a better word. It’s not as moralistic as a morality play, but there was a heightened, black-and-white feel to it. The fact that the characters and setting are unnamed helps with the allegorical feel, and makes it seem a bit hazy and distant. The story is very compelling, although I found the ending a bit unsatisfying. It wrapped up very neatly, but I think that is part of the allegory genre. I would like to read more books by Saramago.