On election day in the capital, it is raining so hard that no one has bothered to come out to vote. The politicians are growing jittery. What's going on? Should they reschedule the elections for another day? Around three o'clock, the rain finally stops. Promptly at four, voters rush to the polling stations, as if they had been ordered to appear.

But when the ballots are counted, more than 70 percent are blank. The citizens are rebellious. A state of emergency is declared. The president proposes that a wall be built around the city to contain the revolution. But are the authorities acting too precipitously? Or even blindly? The word evokes terrible memories of the plague of blindness that had 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? A police superintendent is put on the case.

What begins as a satire on governments and the sometimes dubious efficacy of the democratic system turns into something far more sinister. A singular novel from the author of Blindness.

若泽•萨拉马戈（José Saramago）：

葡萄牙当代最杰出的作家。1922年生于葡萄牙，高中时因家境贫困而辍学，先后从事技工、文员、记者、编辑等多种职业。1979年开始投入文学创作。1982年出版的《修道院纪事》为他赢得国际声誉。此后出版《里斯本之围》《失明症漫记》《复明症漫记》等多部影响深远的小说。1998 年荣获诺贝尔文学奖，是葡萄牙迄今唯一一位获此殊荣的作家。2010年在西班牙兰萨罗特岛去世。