Seeing

José Saramago · 1922–2010 · Portugal

Originally Ensaio sobre a Lucidez (Portuguese) · translated by Margaret Jull Costa

Why it matters

Four years after Blindness, the same unnamed city holds an election and eighty-three percent of ballots come back blank. Saramago's loose sequel turns a government's panic at peaceful, silent dissent into a chilling parable about power's fear of an untraceable will.

At a glance

Same demands as Blindness: unbroken paragraphs, unnamed characters, no quotation marks.