Andrew Leland Chronicles His Own Vision Loss in “The Country of the Blind”

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KQED

Politics, News, News Commentary

4.6 • 656 Ratings

🗓️ 21 July 2023

⏱️ 56 minutes

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Summary

Writer Andrew Leland has been going blind since he was a teenager, which is when he was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa. Now in his forties, he reflects that “the most painful part so far has been the not-knowing” when he will completely lose his sight. But his encroaching blindness has also been a portal to creativity and intellectual exploration. As someone who still has his sight, Leland wonders if he is a citizen in “the country of the blind” and if so, what does that mean? We talk to Leland about his new memoir “The Country of the Blind.” Guests: Andrew Leland, author, "The Country of the Blind: A Memoir at the End of Sight." Leland is an editor at "The Believer" and, from 2013 to 2019, he hosted and produced the podcast "The Organist" for KCRW in Los Angeles. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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0:00.0	Support for Key QBD Podcasts comes from San Francisco International Airport.
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1:16.6	When writer Andrew Leland was a teenager, he knew that he would eventually lose his sight.
1:21.6	And as his blindness progressed in his 30s, he became more curious about the world of blindness and what possibilities existed there.
1:28.3	Leland went to conferences for the blind, enrolled in a school staffed entirely by blind people,
1:33.3	where students use power saws and woodshop, play ice hockey, and cook a meal for 60.
1:37.3	Coming up on forum, we talked to Leland about his search for a more accurate image of the blind world
1:43.3	and his place in it as he straddles,
1:46.1	quote, being too sighted to be blind and too blind to be sighted. Join us.
1:51.3	Welcome to Forum. I'm Mina Kim.
2:03.7	Andrew Leland says he spends much of his life these days in a, quote, speculative mode, like a science fiction writer who looks at the present and tries to imagine the future.
2:14.3	That's because Leland is going blind, gradually. When he was a teen, he was diagnosed with retinitis pigmentosa, and now in his 40s, he says the hardest part has been the not knowing when his vision will be completely gone.
	...

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