Publisher's Synopsis
The novel is about the epidemic of blindness. FIRE is considered a surreal, multi-layered, multi-meaning novel by Saramago. A novel with weight, wonder and horror about the nature of human beings, of the world in which we live. A 35-year-old man driving a car suddenly went blind. A passerby who took him home also went blind. The ophthalmologist who examined the first blind man and the sick people in the waiting room that day suddenly saw nothing but a white color like "swimming in the sea of milk". White blindness is like a disease spreading everywhere, causing people to panic. The first sick people and those who were likely to get sick were gathered by the government and locked up in an insane asylum, to prevent the outbreak of this disease. They were completely isolated, guarded by armed men, in case they fled. And those who intended or were suspected of trying to escape were shot dead mercilessly.
