Seeing
(Book)

Translation of: Ensaio sobre a lucidez. On election day in the capital, it is raining so hard that no one has come out to vote. The politicians are growing jittery. Should they reschedule for another day? Around three o'clock, the rain finally stops. At four, voters rush to the polling stations, as if ordered to appear. But when the ballots are counted, more than 70% are blank. The citizens are rebellious. A state of emergency is declared. The president proposes that a wall be built around the city. But are the authorities acting too precipitously? Or even blindly? The word evokes terrible memories of the plague of blindness that hit the city four years before, and of the one woman who kept her sight. Could she be behind the blank ballots? Is she the organizer of a conspiracy against the state? What begins as a satire on governments and the sometimes dubious efficacy of the democratic system turns into something far more sinister.