An epidemic of white blindness sweeps through an unnamed city, and society disintegrates with terrifying speed. Saramago's prose runs without paragraph breaks, dialogue unmarked, as if the text itself has lost its sight. An ophthalmologist's wife retains her vision and becomes our guide through quarantine camps, through atrocity and small acts of grace. The allegory is clear but never didactic. Written with Nobel Prize-winning authority, this is a book about seeing clearly what we would prefer to ignore.