Ensaio Sobre a Cegueira

13 Feb 2025|3 minute read

Ensaio Sobre a Cegueira cover

Ensaio Sobre a Cegueira

Author: José Saramago

Pages: 310

Genres: Fiction / Dystopia / Novels

Published: 1995

My Rating: ★★★★☆ (4 stars)

Um homem fica cego, inexplicavelmente, quando se encontra no seu carro no meio do trânsito. A cegueira alastra como «um rastilho de pólvora». Uma cegueira coletiva.

Romance contundente. Saramago a ver mais longe. Personagens sem nome. Um mundo com as contradições da espécie humana. Não se situa em nenhum tempo específico. É um tempo que pode ser ontem, hoje ou amanhã. As ideias a virem ao de cima, sempre na escrita de Saramago. A alegoria. O poder da palavra a abrir os olhos, face ao risco de uma situação terminal generalizada. A arte da escrita ao serviço da preocupação cívica.


One man becomes inexplicably blind when he finds himself in his car in the midst of traffic. The blindness spreads like “a string of gunpowder.” A collective blindness.

A powerful novel. Saramago, who sees further. Characters without names. A world filled with the contradictions of the human species. It is not set in any specific time – it is a time that could be yesterday, today, or tomorrow. Ideas that turn everything upside down, as is always the case in Saramago’s writing. Allegory. The power of words to open eyes in the face of the risk of a generalized terminal situation. The art of writing in the service of civic concern.

« Automatic translation »

Review: I must start by saying that as Portuguese, I have a great respect for the work by José Saramago, in which with his masterpieces he was able to provide something unique to our culture, a Nobel Prize.

This book is very intense and very detailed, in which it properly illustration a fictitious scenario in which the world is put in a unique and difficult reality.

Saramago’s ability to control the emotions of the characters is unique. The way he envisions the missing of humanity, when everyone is just concerned with themselves, is truly remarkable.

There were portions of the narrative where the vivid descriptions of the characters’ surroundings were so overwhelming that I could feel my body contort, agitated by the repulsive imagery it elicited.

I find the writing to be sometimes difficult to read, but I believe that is a mark of its way of transmitting written histories, giving it a sense of uniqueness.

This is a very impactful phrase from the book, which I would like to leave here:

“Se podes olhar, vê. Se podes ver, repara.”

“If you can look, see. If you can see, notice.”

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