Book Club Guide

Blindness

by Jose Saramago · 1995 · Literary Fiction

Key themes

Civilisation as the thinnest possible layer over what humans will do to each other
The one woman who can see — and the specific burden of sight
Society reduced to its essentials — and what the essentials turn out to be

About this book

A sudden epidemic of blindness strikes an unnamed city, and the infected are quarantined in an abandoned mental asylum where social order rapidly collapses. Saramago's novel follows one woman — the only person who can see — through the catastrophe. It is both a philosophical fable about what civilisation actually requires and a viscerally disturbing account of what people do when structure disappears.

Published in Portuguese in 1995 and English in 1997, Blindness won the Nobel Prize committee's attention when Saramago received the prize in 1998. Saramago was a committed communist who had the novel banned in Portugal under Salazar.

Discussion questions

Saramago refuses to give his characters names. What does this anonymity achieve — and what would named characters lose?
The quarantine deteriorates rapidly into violence and predation. How does Saramago develop this — and is the speed of social collapse realistic or allegorical?
The doctor's wife is the only person who can see but pretends to be blind. How does Saramago develop her choice — and what does her role as witness cost her?
The novel has been described as a parable of what human beings actually are beneath their social structures. Is this a pessimistic or a realistic vision — and does Saramago offer any hope?
Blindness is both a page-turner and a formally demanding novel. How does Saramago sustain the tension — and what does his prose style (long paragraphs, minimal punctuation) contribute?