25 Anos 25 Livros - "Ensaio sobre a Cegueira" Escolhido pelo World Literature Today

A publicação WLT World Literature Today, pediu que fossem nomeadas as obras mais influentes, escrita em qualquer língua, mas traduzida para o Inglês, publicadas desde Novembro de 1989.

Esta data é importante, porque serve de referência para a abertura do leste, fim da guerra fria com a queda do muro de Berlim. 

José Saramago, através do "Ensaio sobre a Cegueira", é reconhecido com esta nomeação.

O mundo que segue, ou considera a influência deste tipo de escolhas, tem mais uma janela aberta para a entrada no mundo Saramaguiano.

Aqui o Link do World Literature Today
- http://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/

Link para as 25 obras escolhidas, em
- http://www.worldliteraturetoday.org/2014/november/results-25-books-inspired-world-1989-2014#.VF3lkfmsX4X

As part of World Literature Today magazine’s November 2014 cover feature focusing on central European literature since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the editors invited 25 writers to nominate one book that most influenced their own writing or ways of seeing the world. Nominations were open to any book-length work—written in any language and published since November 1989—as long as it could be read in English. The longlist was then published on WLT’s blog, and readers were invited to vote for their three favorites. Here are the top ten results, along with the nominating statements for the three winning titles:

José Saramago (Portugal)
Blindness, tr. Giovanni Pontiero, 1995/1998

Laila Lalami and Mahmoud Saeed on José Saramago:

“In Blindness, the people of an unnamed city lose their sight one after another. As the epidemic spreads, social order breaks down and people commit acts of unspeakable horror as well as occasional acts of kindness. Throughout the novel, Saramago makes readers see that, no matter what society we live in, we remain constrained by our cultural perceptions and prejudices and rarely question the state of the world around us.” [LL]

“What I love about literature in general and the novel in particular is the degree of human consciousness involved. Saramago’s Blindness talks about humanity’s struggle with savagery, which is a very old struggle. People have passed laws to rein in evil for thousands of years; however, if we find ourselves in a place where there are no laws, we revert to being primitives and beasts. The novel proposes no particular solution but rather leaves us to think about various personal, individual solutions.” [MS]