Reading and Writing in the Dark: Literature Through Blindness

The work highlights the experiences of writers Jorge Luis Borges and João Cabral de Melo Neto, primarily with books, reading, blindness, and the reading of others—the readers. Furthermore, it discusses the issues that arise for blind readers and authors: the use of audiobooks and the acquisition of Braille, the loss of a sense of freedom, privacy, and the reading environment itself. At the same time, it leads the reader to question: what does it mean to be blind to read a text? Or, what vision is necessary to access literature? To this end, the work draws on scholars such as Alberto Manguel, Roland Barthes, Roger Chartier, Merleau-Ponty, Paul Zumthor, among others.