The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight

saccadic

he published nearly forty books after he went blind—was done by his elderly mother, Leonor, with whom he lived until her death at ninety-nine, and who had done the same work for Borges’s father, Jorge Guillermo Borges, a writer who also went blind in middle age. (Borges’s blindness was hereditary, and his father and grandmother “both died blind,” B

Erin told me that one of the things she loves most about the internet is that it gives her the ability to lurk. “I have this sense as a blind person that I can’t blend in,” she said. “I just feel noticed.” One day she was waiting for an Uber at the airport, and a stranger came up to her and said, “You probably don’t know this, but I take the train

variegated

Though the majority of visually impaired adults are unemployed, several studies found that blind people who use braille have a higher rate of employment and report greater job satisfaction.

In the 1970s, audible pedestrian signals were introduced in the US—those electronic bird chirps that sound when it’s safe to cross an intersection. The NFB came down swiftly against their use, arguing that they reinforced the image of the blind as helpless people who can’t figure out from the sound of traffic when the light has changed. For decades

Will said. He chewed a little, then added, “And at a certain point, you have to ditch the ‘going blind’ narrative. That sounds kind of harsh, but . . . you’ll just be blind. And then you might be less blind or more blind, but you’re still just blind.” This did sound harsh—like he was suggesting that I was playing up my experience of going blind for

published nearly forty books after he went blind—was done by his elderly mother, Leonor, with whom he lived until her death at ninety-nine, and who had done the same work for Borges’s father, Jorge Guillermo Borges, a writer who also went blind in middle age. (Borges’s blindness was hereditary, and his father and grandmother “both died blind,” Borg

Clinton had signed the Chafee Amendment in 1996, freeing all literary works in accessible formats from copyright restrictions in the US.