{"id":9895,"date":"2024-10-02T01:37:13","date_gmt":"2024-10-02T01:37:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/books-we-read\/?p=9895"},"modified":"2024-10-01T15:41:00","modified_gmt":"2024-10-01T15:41:00","slug":"country-of-the-blind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sites.rutgers.edu\/books-we-read\/country-of-the-blind\/","title":{"rendered":"The Country of the Blind"},"content":{"rendered":"
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NDEAM 2024 Poster<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

October is National Disability Employment Awareness Month<\/a>, or \u201cNDEAM,\u201d celebrating the value, talent and contributions workers with disabilities bring to America’s workplaces and economy. NDEAM\u2019s purpose is to educate the public about issues surrounding disability and employment, ensuring disabled workers have continual access to good jobs. <\/span>Rutgers University-New Brunswick also celebrates of Disability Awareness Month<\/a> with events throughout October highlighting diversity and disabilities, hosted by the Office of Disability Services<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This year\u2019s official theme is: \u201cAccess to Good Jobs for All.\u201d Books We Read is publishing a series of blog posts throughout the month to help promote and honor this initiative, including books highlighting disability-related topics and books by authors with disabilities, <\/span>including Pulitzer finalist The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight <\/em>by Andrew Leland, featured in this first post.<\/p>\n

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There is an unfortunate stigma that continues to exist around blindness even though blind people are a vital part of society, with careers as writers, actors, engineers, artists and more. In fact, blindness has appeared at or near the top of the list of \u201cmost-feared disabilities\u201d in polls or surveys for decades. Writer Andrew Leland (The New York Times<\/a><\/em>, The New Yorker<\/a><\/em>) relays this fact and many more in his debut book, The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight<\/a><\/em>.\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Using eloquent prose, Leland vividly details his experiences with retinitis pigmentosa (RP), a genetic disorder that has slowly caused his vision to deteriorate and will eventually result in total blindness. I had the honor of reviewing<\/a> this book AND interviewing<\/a> the author for BookPage<\/a><\/em> (a recommendation guide for readers, highlighting the best new books across all genres). Through this interview I learned that researching, writing about and experiencing the realities, both physical and emotional, of RP was \u201cpowerfully, unmistakably therapeutic\u201d for Leland. As he explained, he \u201cbegan the book awash in a sea of misconceptions, generalizations, assumptions and confusions; what an immense gift it was to be given the opportunity to spend three years rigorously interrogating, investigating, elucidating and defusing them!\u201d<\/p>\n

Because Leland still has some sight, he is able to \u201cperceive everything with a paradoxical double vision: through sighted eyes, and through blind ones.\u201d As a result, his current situation is that of transition: although not yet blind, he is experiencing enough visual impairment to understand what a future without sight will look like. His book is a thought-provoking and contemplative memoir, exploring how the conversion from sighted to blind is affecting Leland\u2019s life, his view of himself and his relationships.<\/p>\n

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The author: Andrew Leland<\/i><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Providing a raw and honest depiction of what it is like to straddle two worlds, Leland lays his feelings and the realities of his condition on the table, particularly the impact on his personal interactions. Along the way he chronicles the backstory of how he discovered he had RP, the genetic aspects of the disease and a general history of blindness. Other chapters focus on topics such as sight-assisted gadgets for blind people (both low and high tech), national organizations for the blind (and how they do not always share the same philosophies), blind activists (including folks from the Physically Disabled Students\u2019 Program at UC Berkeley) and medical therapies for blindness (including CRISPR, gene therapy and wearable technology).<\/p>\n

Diving deep into the history, politics and rich culture of blindness, Leland interviews a myriad of people with varying levels of blindness to get differing perspectives, interspersing their feedback with statistics and expert commentary. You would think The Country of the Blind<\/em> would leave the reader with a sense of sadness, but the feeling is quite the opposite. By maintaining a level of wittiness mixed with reality checks, Leland\u2019s prose exudes hope and authenticity. As he movingly writes, \u201cas I lose my vision, I want to cultivate this picture of blindness \u2013 in Oscar [his son], and Lily [his wife], in myself, and in the world \u2013 of a blind person who\u2019s an active protagonist in his own life.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a final epilogue, I wanted to share that the review and interview I did for BookPage<\/em> was impactful enough that it prompted a reader to reach out to the publication\u2019s subscriptions manager. Here\u2019s what they said:<\/p>\n

\u201cWow! I just got a phone call from a reader who called to thank us for our coverage of THE COUNTRY OF THE BLIND by Andrew Leland in the August ’23 issue (pages 22-23). Her adult son has the same retinal disease as the author, and she was floored when a friend showed her our interview in print. She immediately ordered the book and has been sharing it with others. She praised the tone of the interview, and appreciated the perspective put forth that blindness doesn’t have to be a tragic diagnosis. It was really special to hear from someone who was so emphatically touched by something she read in BookPage.\u201d<\/p>\n

What a wonderful feeling to know this inspiring book (named one of the best books of the year by:\u00a0The New Yorker<\/em>, The Washington Post<\/em>, The Atlantic<\/em>, NPR,\u00a0Publishers Weekly<\/em>\u00a0and Lithub) has touched the life of others and is helping to spread awareness of blindness and other disabilities.<\/p>\n

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Disability Awareness Month Events<\/h4>\n