For the Benefit of Those Who See: Dispatches from the World of the Blind

by Rosemary Mahoney

Overview

In the tradition of Oliver Sacks's The Island of the Colorblind, Rosemary Mahoney tells the story of Braille Without Borders, the first school for the blind in Tibet, and of Sabriye Tenberken, the remarkable blind woman who founded the school.

Fascinated and impressed by what she learned from the blind children of Tibet, Mahoney was moved to investigate further the cultural history of blindness. As part of her research, she spent three months teaching at Tenberken's international training center for blind adults in Kerala, India, an experience that reveals both the shocking oppression endured by the world's blind, as well as their great resilience, integrity, ingenuity, and strength.

By living among the blind, Rosemary Mahoney enables us to see them in fascinating close up, revealing their particular "quality of ease that seems to broadcast a fundamental connection to the world." Having read For the Benefit of Those Who See, you will never see the world in quite the same way again.

"In this intelligent and humane book, Rosemary Mahoney writes of people who are blind . . . She reports on their courage and gives voice, time and again, to their miraculous dignity." -- Andrew Solomon, author of Far From the Tree

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780316248709
Publisher:	Little, Brown and Company
Publication date:	01/14/2014
Sold by:	Hachette Digital, Inc.
Format:	eBook
Pages:	304
File size:	670 KB

About the Author

Rosemary Mahoney is the author of The Early Arrival of Dreams, a New York Times Notable Book; Whoredom in Kimmage, a National Book Critics Circle Award finalist; A Likely Story: One Summer with Lillian Hellman; The Singular Pilgrim: Travels on Sacred Ground; and Down the Nile: Alone in a Fisherman's Skiff, a New York Times Notable Book. She is the recipient of a Whiting Writer's Award.

Table of Contents

Vision 3

Braille Without Borders 21

The Blind Leading the Blind 43

The Neglected Senses 66

For the Benefit of Those Who See 93

Navigation 135

The Blind Leading the Sighted 164

Perception 193

Sight Regained 227

The Definition of Real 247

Author's Note 269

Acknowledgments 271

Bibliography 273

Index 277

Reading Group Guide 291

Editorial Reviews

12/01/2013
Like many sighted people, Mahoney (Down the Nile: Alone in a Fisherman's Skiff) dreaded the idea of going blind and felt uncomfortable around blind people. A magazine assignment sent her to visit Braille Without Borders, Tibet's first educational institution for the blind, and its founder, blind German educator Sabriye Tenberken. Mahoney's encounters with Tenberken and her resilient students inspired her to take a teaching position at Tenberken's International Institute for Social Entrepreneurs (IISE) in Kerala, India, which trains and empowers visually impaired adults. Here she surveys the history of blind education and the surprising, upsetting results of vision restoration surgery but also focuses on the Tibetan children and the IISE students from lands as diverse as Liberia, Japan, and Norway. Readers learn shocking backstories relating to prejudices and ignorance that led to neglect and abuse of blind people—from children kept in permanent confinement to the harvesting of body parts of blind African albinos. Yet in the context of the joy, determination, and dignity of the tellers here, Mahoney's overall story is one of hope and affirmation. VERDICT This gracious book illuminates blind culture and teaches something of lifeways in Tibet, southern India, and sub-Saharan Africa. It should reach a wide general audience and may also bring readers to Tenberken's own work, My Path Leads to Tibet.—Janet Ingraham Dwyer, State Lib. of Ohio, Columbus

Library Journal

10/28/2013
“The blind can well enough defend themselves,” says Mahoney (Down the Nile) in this beautiful book about a vibrant leader of the blind, Sabriye Tenberken. German-born Tenberken founded a school for blind children in Tibet—which later became Braille Without Borders—as well as a school in Kerala, India, to train blind teachers. Mahoney, who is sighted, became a teacher at the latter facility and was at first terrified by her decision. All around her, the blind were laughing, thinking, walking without fear and with an impossible patience. She was startled by the way her students easily inhabited “a world dominated by thought rather than appearances.” Doubting herself, she says, “I was not even a well-adjusted sighted person... I was born impatient and annoyed.” For such reasons, she writes, “I was not quite sure I was prepared to teach.” She stumbles through her first challenge—to define “twinkling”—as one might expect of a sighted person in a sightless world. But in time Mahoney becomes an exceptional translator for the blind, mediating for what she ends up seeing as two groups of the sighted: those who see with their eyes, and those who see with their minds. Agent: Betsy Lerner; Dunow, Carlson & Lerner Literary Agency. (Jan.)

Publishers Weekly

"What makes For the Benefit of Those Who See especially absorbing is that it turns on Mahoney's greatest strength: her idiosyncratic and unblinking eye. When I finished this book, I returned to the world feeling that all my senses had been sharpened."-George Howe Colt, author of The Big House (finalist for The National Book Award in nonfiction)

"With her wonderfully sharp prose and great sense of humor and humanity, Rosemary Mahoney has written a riveting narrative that combines world-class reporting, science, history, and travel writing."-Will Schwalbe, author of The End of Your Life Book Club

"A spiritual odyssey into the world of the blind....A beautiful meditation on human nature."-Kirkus (Starred Review)

"[a] sparkling exploration...when you finish [Mahoney's] book, walk outside and close your eyes. You just might meet the world again, startling, mysterious, new. - Lynn Darling, Oprah.com

"[Mahoney's] research is fascinating, her self-scrutiny refreshing and her prose just the right kind of gorgeous. In this wonderful book we discover along with the author that both sight and its absence come with burdens-and beauties." -Judith Stone, More.com

"Riveting...Compulsively readable...Mahoney's beautifully written narrative opens our eyes to the experience of blindness and offers fresh insight into human resilience and the way we view the world." -Henry L. Carrigan Jr., Book Page

"For The Benefit of Those Who See is a compassionate realization that seeing isn't the only path to knowing." -Bret McCabe, Johns Hopkins Magazine

"A vivid portrait of people and places...It's as if [Mahoney had] turned on the lights in a dark room, revealing how the world appears to those who experience it with their other four senses. The seeing reader will gasp in recognition and understanding, marveling at lives once hidden." -Karen Valby, Entertainment Weekly

"Mahoney's vision lends her books an uncanny quality that makes you really feel like you're with her. Weirdly, she says, she had never met a blind person. So Mahoney was apprehensive when she was assigned to write a profile of a woman running the first school for the blind in Tibet. Her experience there served as a prelude for a fuller immersion in the world of the blind, detailed in her new book, For the Benefit of Those Who See." -Arun Rath, NPR.org

"Mahoney's curiosity, inspired by her own 'morbid fear' of losing her sight, led her to investigate many aspects of blindness. Particularly fascinating are her accounts of the founding of the Perkins School for the Blind (now in Watertown) and her review of rare cases in which sight was restored-and not entirely welcome." -Suzanne Koven, Boston Globe

"Rosemary Mahoney's stunning new [book]...could not have arrived at a better moment. In more ways than ever, we are always seeing, always seen.... Writing with a scientist's curiosity and insistence on fact-and a novelist's gift for delineating place and character-Mahoney makes their world ours, too." -Megan Marshall, Radcliffe Magazine

"A gifted and unflinching observer of the world... Mahoney opens our eyes to sightless reality and discovers how the blind, like the rest of us, have a human need to recognize, to differentiate, and above all, to connect with the people around them."—-Chicago Tribune, "Editor's Choice"

"Rosemary Mahoney aimed high when she decided to write For the Benefit of Those Who See... We begin to better understand both the vulnerability of blindness-and its enormous possibilities for a rich, if different life... The phrase in the moment takes on new meaning in Mahoney's hands. The moment is-or can be-composed of more than just the things that we see in our visually overwhelming world."—-G. Wayne Miller, Providence Journal

"Mahoney takes readers along on her life-changing experience of immersion in the lives of blind students... Her compassion for her subjects shines through in every word here, making this a fascinating and thoughtful look into the lives of people who experience the world differently than most."—Colleen Mondor, Booklist (starred review)

"For the Benefit of Those Who See is delightful. Mahoney presents scene after exotic scene with such wit and precision. And the characters, some of whom made me laugh out loud, all shine with their own particularity and quirkiness. I am full of admiration for this unforgettable and important book."—Elizabeth Gitter, author of The Imprisoned Guest: Samuel Howe and Laura Bridgman, the Original Blind Deaf Girl.

"Life without sight seems unimaginably bleak to the sighted. No matter that literate guides from Diderot to Oliver Sacks have confirmed that the blind thrive in their separate reality; the gulf between the light world and the dark one persists. Now a sighted, initially skeptical traveler has provided a multilayered, utterly gripping account of life among the developing world's large blind population... Everyone knows that the loss of one sense strengthens the others, but to understand exactly what that means is not easy. Ms. Mahoney writes with an alchemy that actually inches the reader along to the point of comprehension."—Abigail Zuger, M.D., New York Times

From the Publisher

"Riveting....The trip would be no more than a gutsy stunt if Mahoney were not such a beautifully precise writer and such a compassionate observer.... In the course of her trip, Mahoney traversed just 120 miles of the world's longest river; by the end of her brilliant travelogue, you'll wish she'd tackled the whole length."

Jennifer Reese - Entertainment Weekly (An EW Pick)

"A travel-minded memoir guaranteed to transport you."

Megan O'Grady - Vogue

Praise for Rosemary Mahoney's Down the Nile:

"Mahoney has a gift for revealing apparently unremarkable moments in such a way as to make them utterly engrossing....sinuous and richly textured writing and an eye for vivid and startling details"

Lisa Fugard - New York Times Book Review

There are many revelations in this audiobook—for example, that restoring sight is not always a blessing for the blind— and one of the best surprises is the narration by author Rosemary Mahoney. Mahoney's husky, lean delivery packs a professional wallop as she steers the book between three elements—a trip to Tibet to profile Sabriya Tenberken, the founder of Braille Without Borders; a trip to India to teach English to blind students; and an informative social and cultural history of blindness. Mahoney's attention to detail, her honest (and sometimes abrasive) observations, and her excellent narration make this a great listen. R.W.S. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine

MARCH 2014 - AudioFile

There are many revelations in this audiobook—for example, that restoring sight is not always a blessing for the blind— and one of the best surprises is the narration by author Rosemary Mahoney. Mahoney's husky, lean delivery packs a professional wallop as she steers the book between three elements—a trip to Tibet to profile Sabriya Tenberken, the founder of Braille Without Borders; a trip to India to teach English to blind students; and an informative social and cultural history of blindness. Mahoney's attention to detail, her honest (and sometimes abrasive) observations, and her excellent narration make this a great listen. R.W.S. © AudioFile 2014, Portland, Maine

MARCH 2014 - AudioFile

★ 2013-10-20
A spiritual odyssey into the world of the blind. In 2005, Mahoney (Down the Nile Alone: In a Fisherman's Skiff, 2007, etc.) visited Braille Without Borders, Tibet's first school for the blind, founded by German educator Sabriye Tenberken, who herself is blind. It offered classes in "Braille, Chinese, English, computers, mathematics and navigational skills," to blind young Tibetans, many of whom were illiterate and had been living in deplorable conditions in their impoverished villages, where they were a burden to their families and were shunned and bullied by their peers. At first, the author viewed the trip with trepidation, believing the typical stereotype that the blind were deprived of "their real enjoyment of life, their effectuality, and their potential." Mahoney was astonished to see the students' levels of joy and accomplishment. Being blind, many of them said, had given them the opportunity to leave the hardscrabble existence in their villages and attend this wonderful school where they were being educated and making new friends. For the author, the experience was a revelation. Four years later, she volunteered to teach English at a new school that Braille Without Borders was opening in India, attended by adult students from Africa and Latin America as well as Asia who wished to work on behalf of the blind in their own countries. The diversity of the students greatly enhanced the vibrancy of the community, and Mahoney was impressed by their intellectual and spiritual depths. She observed that they navigated the heavily trafficked streets of Kerala with ease. They gathered information about their environment from their other senses in order to recognize people and places, and they lived in a world "dominated by thought rather than appearance and visual details." After all, she writes, "it's the ability to reason and communicate that make us extraordinary." A beautiful meditation on human nature.

Kirkus Reviews