The Country of the Blind : A Memoir at the End of Sight

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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 “The Country of the Blind is about seeing—but also about marriage and family and the moral and emotional challenge of accommodating the parts of ourselves that scare us. A warm, profound, and unforgettable meditation on how we adjust to new ways of being in the world.” —Rachel Aviv, author of Strangers to Ourselves 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, such that he now sees the world as if through a narrow tube.... Contents Author’s Note Introduction: The End Begins PART I Phantom Limp 1. Seeing Stars 2. National Blindness 3. Blinded by Definition PART II The Lost World 4. The Male Gaze 5. Camera Obscura 6. The Library of Babel 7. The Makers PART III Structured Discovery 8. Against Blindness 9. Lady Justice 10. Half Smiling Conclusion: Endgame Acknowledgments Notes on Capitalization and Sources, and Image Descriptions Index