Wednesday, June 5, 2019

Today I will read you a perfect story by the Portuguese José Saramago. Saramago won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1998, after the publication of his novel Blindness, which is the most disturbing dystopia I have ever read. I promise you that all those apocalyptic TV series and movies that you've seen, where life in the future becomes impossible for the protagonists, pale before the stark but frighteningly real and credible world that Saramago manages to create. And he does not resort to any easy trick, like a Martian invasion or a nuclear war. In Blindness Saramago explores just one simple premise: what would happen if suddenly ordinary people like you and me went blind. It is something very chilling and devastating. But fear not, for the story by Saramago that I present to you today is light and charming like a breeze of fresh and invigorating air to help us fall in love with life. Two phrases -which will appear in the story- are the Radiant Whispers that will remain in our minds and in our hearts after reading the Tale of the Unknown Island. The first: "If you don't step outside yourself you'll never discover who you are." And the second: "That you have to leave the island in order to see the island; that we can't see ourselves unless we become free of ourselves. "

Credits: Translation by Margaret Jull Costa.

Music: "Hadouk" by Didier Malherbe & Loy Ehrlich. Editions Tangram, 30, bd de Charonne 75020 Paris