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Criticism

Following the increased notoriety of the novel upon the release of the 2008 film adaptation, the US National Federation of the Blind (NFB) criticized Saramago's work. In a banquet speech at the organization’s annual convention on July 4, 2008, in Dallas, Texas, NFB President Dr. Marc Maurer criticized the novel and its film adaptation as negatively portraying the blind.^[2]

A novel entitled "The Sight Sickness" by Christine Faltz Grassman, was published by Iuniverse in March, 2009. Written by a blind woman, it is a polemic "anti-sequel" to Saramago's book (ISBN 9780595531561), and contains Grassman's response to the age-old literal and figurative use of blindness in a negative manner in literature and other media.

In the novel, after the White Sickness has lifted from the city and society is rebuilt, the health officials who ruthlessly caged the infected blind people in the decrepit asylum are put to trial for their inhumane acts, yet are acquitted. Unsatisfied with this injustice, a group of formerly infected citizens who call themselves "the Cellmates" abduct seven people and subject them to the same horror they (the Cellmates) endured in the asylum when the White Sickness devastated the country as revenge for being locked up rather than taught how to cope with their newfound handicap.