Blindness
ABOUT
THE BOOK
The first man to succumb to the white blindness had been in his car, waiting for the lights to change. His wife took him to the ophthalmologist, who did not know what to make of it and himself went blind while looking up his textbooks. To contain what was fast becoming an epidemic, the Government has the blind rounded up and interned in a lunatic asylum, the blind in one wing and the sighted who had been in contact with them in the other, with armed guards to prevent their escape. But still the blindness spread, sparing no one except the ophthalmologist’s wife, who claimed to be blind in order to stay with her husband. Blindness depicts a perfect nightmare: an advanced urban society that all too quickly reverts to barbarism as the entire infrastructure of communal living collapses. José Saramago was born in Portugal in 1922 and became a full-time writer in 1979. He has written novels, plays, poetry, short stories, and non-fiction and been translated into more than twenty languages. He was short listed for the 1996 International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award, for his book, The Gospel according to Jesus Christ, and was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998.
Original title in Portuguese Ensaio sobre a Cegueira published by Caminho (1995)
ABOUT
THE TRANSLATOR Giovanni
Pontiero
Giovanni Pontiero (10 February 1932 – 10 February 1996) was a British scholar and translator of Portuguese fiction, most notably the works of José Saramago. His translation of the Saramago work The Gospel According to Jesus Christ was awarded the Teixeira-Gomes Prize for Portuguese translation.
Pontiero was born in Glasgow and graduated from the university of Glasgow in 1960. In 1962 he was appointed lecturer in Latin American studies at Manchester. He was later promoted to senior lecturer and finally Reader in Latin-American Literature in the Victoria University of Manchester until his retirement in 1995. He was the principal translator into English of the works of Clarice Lispector, and met acclaim for his translation of Lispector’s A Hora da Estrela, known in English as The Hour of the Star. He was amongst those to note Pandeism to be an influence on the writings of noted mid-twentieth-century Brazilian poet Carlos Nejar.
Pontiero is known for saying, “Encounters with the animal world are frequent in Lispector’s stories. Untouched by human contradictions, animals are more alive because they are more secure than human beings.”
Giovanni Pontiero (10 February 1932 – 10 February 1996) was a British scholar and translator of Portuguese fiction, most notably the works of José Saramago. His translation of the Saramago work The Gospel According to Jesus Christ was awarded the Teixeira-Gomes Prize for Portuguese translation.
Pontiero was born in Glasgow and graduated from the university of Glasgow in 1960. In 1962 he was appointed lecturer in Latin American studies at Manchester. He was later promoted to senior lecturer and finally Reader in Latin-American Literature in the Victoria University of Manchester until his retirement in 1995. He was the principal translator into English of the works of Clarice Lispector, and met acclaim for his translation of Lispector’s A Hora da Estrela, known in English as The Hour of the Star. He was amongst those to note Pandeism to be an influence on the writings of noted mid-twentieth-century Brazilian poet Carlos Nejar.
Pontiero is known for saying, “Encounters with the animal world are frequent in Lispector’s stories. Untouched by human contradictions, animals are more alive because they are more secure than human beings.”