The Country of the Blind

"Over the mountains I come," said Nunez, "out of the country beyond there—where men can see. From near Bogota, where there are a hundred thousands of people, and where the city passes out of sight."



One of the acknowledged masters of speculative fiction, H.G. Wells conducts in this short story a disconcerting thought experiment. What would become of a community if its members were somehow deprived of sight? How would society evolve in the absence of the very concept of visibility? And what if, one day, a sighted outsider suddenly found himself in this country of the blind?



H.G. Wells (1866-1946) was a novelist and social theorist who was one of the most prominent public intellectuals of his time. He is arguably the single most influential writer within the genre of science fiction; his many works include The Time Machine, The Invisible Man and The War of the Worlds.