Blindness

José Saramago, who received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1998, created in Blindness a harrowing allegory of human nature under extreme duress. When an unexplained epidemic of blindness sweeps through an unnamed city, the social order collapses into brutality and chaos, revealing both the fragility of civilization and the resilience of human compassion. The novel's distinctive style—long, unpunctuated sentences flowing without paragraph breaks—immerses the reader in the disorientation of a world stripped of sight and certainty.

Written in the post-Cold War period, Blindness serves as an allegory of moral blindness and the ease with which societies can descend into barbarism when the structures of order are removed. The novel acquired prophetic resonance during the global pandemic era, as its depiction of quarantine, institutional failure, and collective fear mirrored experiences that readers around the world would come to know firsthand.