BLINDNESS

  It is the voice of Blindness that gives it its charm. By turns ironic, humorous and frank, there is a kind of wink of humor between author and reader that is perfectly imbued with fury at the excesses of the current century. Blindness reminds me of Kafka roaring with laughter as he read his stories to his friends... Blindness' impact carries the force of an author whose sensibility is significant.

  A city is hit by an epidemic of "white blindness" that spares no one. Authorities confine the first to go blind to an empty mental hospital, but there the criminal element holds everyone captive, stealing food rations and assaulting women. There is one eyewitness to this nightmare who guides seven strangers through the barren streets to freedom-a procession as uncanny as the surroundings are harrowing.

  Blindness is an unsettling portrait of man's inhumanity to man--and of humankind's resilient spirit.