This was quite the trip to read as someone slowly going blind, with a risky operation looming in the future… I imagine it’d be a very different experience for your average reader! I loved Meruane’s turns of phrase, her masterful weaving of visceral matter-of-fact with feverish vulnerability, her knack for painting poetic forms of phenomena I was either only half-aware if, or recognised but could not put words to. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book quite like this - do not let its small stature con you into false anticipation of a quick turnover.

No es un libro para cualquiera, probablemente yo no entre en ese grupo selecto. Es un libro pesado de leer, por su forma escrita continua que tiene, pero a veces era muy adictivo, leer el pensamiento de Lina y que sucederá con ella.

This gave me absolutely nothing except for extreme discomfort and hate for the writing style. The blurb sold the book way too highly. I didn't see any unhinged passionate woman in the main character. This was just a huge big bunch of meaningless blabla with some discriminating and racist comments weaved in.

I normally do not have the patience for stream-of-consciousness writing, but it works in this book because the language is beautiful and sometimes poetic. Plus there is an actual plot! I look forward to reading other winners of the Sor Juana Inez de la Cruz Prize.

They say that when you go blind your other senses become magnified. In Lina Meruane's Seeing Red it is not the senses, but the emotions of the protagonist that become magnified. Lina –yes that is her name – is a writer who suffers from an unusual disorder in her eyes that lead to a bleeding that hollows her mind and her everyday life. This story is based on the author's own sight issues which makes Seeing Red a piece of auto fiction, but to be honest, I prefer to call it a decided attempt of writing while blind. Oddly as it sounds it is precisely this blindness, of both the author and the protagonist, what makes Seeing Red such a vivid tale

Resenha num futuro próximo.