The Country of the Blind
A Memoir at the End of Sight
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4.1 • 8 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
FINALIST FOR THE PULITZER PRIZE
Named one of the best books of the year by: THE NEW YORKER • THE WASHINGTON POST • THE ATLANTIC • NPR • PUBLISHERS WEEKLY • LITHUB
"Fascinating...The great strength of this memoir is its voracious, humble curiosity." - The Atlantic, The 10 Best Books of the Year
A witty, winning, and revelatory personal narrative of the author’s transition from sightedness to blindness and his quest to learn about blindness as a rich culture all its own.
We meet Andrew Leland as he’s suspended in the liminal state of the soon-to-be blind: he’s midway through his life with retinitis pigmentosa, a condition that ushers those who live with it from sightedness to blindness over years, even decades. He grew up with full vision, but starting in his teenage years, his sight began to degrade from the outside in. Soon— but without knowing exactly when—he will likely have no vision left.
Full of apprehension but also dogged curiosity, Leland embarks on a sweeping exploration of the state of being that awaits him: not only the physical experience of blindness but also its language, politics, and customs. He negotiates his changing relationships with his wife and son, and with his own sense of self, as he moves from his mainstream, “typical” life to one with a disability. Part memoir, part historical and cultural investigation, The Country of the Blind represents Leland’s determination not to merely survive this transition but to grow from it—to seek out and revel in that which makes blindness enlightening. Brimming with warmth and humor, it is an exhilarating tour of a new way of being.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Believer editor Leland delivers a masterful exploration of disability in his brilliant debut. Living with retinitis pigmentosa, a condition that gradually results in total vision loss, since he was a teenager, Leland considers his ongoing transition from sightedness to blindness with ambivalence and curiosity: "I need to know how I will live, and what kind of blind person I'll be." While he mourns the loss of things like seeing his son's face and reading printed text, he discovers new, more tactile ways of being, such as letting his son guide him through a museum, or sweeping his fingers across "marvelous" lines of braille. Interweaving his own experiences, dozens of interviews with blind people and cultural experts, and forays into philosophy, history, and literature, Leland constructs a nuanced understanding of "blind politics, blind tech, blind culture, and blind struggle," discussing, among other topics, schisms within the National Federation of the Blind and the ways much modern technology can trace its roots back to "blind troubleshooters," whose innovations have become integrated into the broader culture. At the core of his inquiry are the paradoxes of disability: how does one understand blindness as both an impairment and a "neutral characteristic," and how can Leland accept his "new identity" as both central and incidental? Enriched y its sparkling prose, this is an extraordinary and intellectually rigorous account of adapting to change.
