At my book club, we were discussing All the Light We Cannot See, which has a blind girl as one of the two main characters. One of the book club members has a daughter (in her 20’s) who has lost her sight in the last few years, and the mom said the author (a sighted man) accurately and sensitively presented what she has observed (as it were) about her daughter’s experience. Of course, the book opens as the Germans are marching into Paris in WWII, so this character encounters more life-threatening challenges than the mom’s daughter or any ordinary person would in peacetime, blind or otherwise.
It made me wonder if there has been a novel written by a blind person with a blind person as the protagonist. Not as a clever gimmick (like maybe a blind detective) but just a regular character among many, experiencing the ordinary, conflicted, interesting, challenging events of a life.
Anyone know of any such novels?
Wondering in advance who will be offended by *something *in this post… It is the Dope, after all.
Not a novel, but Helen Keller wrote ( IIRC) three autobiographies, covering different stages of her life. Only the first – The Story of my Life – is well-known
Edited to add:
A quick search turns up this book. I’m sure there are plenty of others:
Claire - The Blind Love of a Blind Hero, By a Blind Author Paperback – July 6, 2010
I’m in a writing group. One of our members is blind, and has written a couple of novels with blind protagonists. Both of them are ordinary slice-of-life novels, not detective stories or anything like that.
The snag is that they haven’t been published, although in my opinion they’re certainly worthy of it.
He has published some short fiction in an online literary journal called Breath & Shadow, which is a journal focused on living with disabilities, written entirely by people with disabilities. You might find some stories there that are similar to what you’re interested in.
Not the protagonist, but after Sue Townsend lost her eyesight due to diabetes she worked similar into her Adrian Mole series. The character Nigel also goes blind and deals with issues related to it.
Not a novelist but Jorge Luis Borges went blind and wrote dozens of short stories. Not sure if any of his characters were blind themselves though? I can’t recall but maybe someone else can.
Beverly Butler was born sighted and blind by age 14. Light a Single Candle and its sequel Gift of Gold are effectively her story, but still fiction. Her writing style is exquisite; she uses every sense except vision to set a scene.
Aldous Huxley was basically blind. I haven’t read all his things, but he did do Eyeless in Gaza :). Or more literally, Time Must Have a Stop has “Mrs. Gamble - Eustace’s mother in law, a blind old woman who regularly partakes in seance’s [sic] to communicate with her deceased friends.”
Follow My Leader, by James B. Garfield. It’s a children’s novel about a boy who loses his sight in an accident and gets a guide dog, learns Braille, etc.
Someone asked the question here. Apparently there’s only one mainstream author, Jorge Luis Borges, but I’m not familiar enough with his works to know if there is a blind character in a work written after he lost his sight completely.
