Paris 1821, at the Institut National des Jeunes Aveugles, France’s national institution for the blind: It is the “night writing” of a certain Charles Barbier that causes blind Louis Braille to ponder deeply. Fascinated, the boy strokes his fingertips over the sublime characters and asks himself one question: Is this script, which was originally conceived as a secret script for the military, the vehicle to freedom?
And lo and behold – after initial difficulties, he arrives at six simple raised dots. They are – so he realizes – the key to all the knowledge that slumbers in the books of the sighted and for which he thirsts endlessly.
How does one comprehend the world when it always remains dark?
With his great debut novel, Zwerina delves into French history and devotes himself to the one whose writing opened up the world to him: Louis Braille
An impressive life, told in impressive as well as surprising pictures