Blindingly Obvious, Minnie Baragwanath
Publication date 17th August 2023
RRP $45.00, PB, 334pp
ISBN: 9781738596935
“This book speaks to what is possible from the edges if you are willing to risk everything to make a real and lasting difference.
Buy it, read it. You will be challenged and changed.”
A new book from one of Aotearoa New Zealand’s leading entrepreneurs, business innovators, and changemakers is – not surprisingly, given its author’s history of social change – upending and expanding the model for how books are published to make them more accessible to all people.
Blindingly Obvious: The Beautiful Vision of Minnie B., is entrepreneur, innovator, and blind social pioneer Minnie Baragwanath’s deeply personal story of her life, work, and global vision of possibility for all people, everywhere.
Launched on 17 August 2023, Blindingly Obvious was the first New Zealand book to be published in multiple formats for all New Zealanders and the first published in both te reo Māori and New Zealand Sign Language.
About the book
This is the moving story of a woman who, throughout her life, has refused to be defined by what others think she can or cannot do.
Minnie Baragwanath was diagnosed, at the age of 15, with a congenital condition that left her legally blind. However, she did not meekly accept the limitations that blindness might have imposed on her: instead, she dug in her heels and set about improving not only her own life but also the lives of all New Zealanders with access needs.
The dramatic events of Minnie’s life – losing her sight, being admitted to a psychiatric hospital in Japan at 19, becoming a television presenter, participating in the New York Marathon, surviving life-threatening illnesses, founding and leading innovative organisations, receiving prestigious awards (including the New Zealand Order of Merit) – are related in vivid detail. Minnie looks candidly at both her challenges and her triumphs, giving the reader the opportunity to share her exceptional experiences.
This book has the potential to change our views of what ‘disability’ means. Minnie’s far-reaching ideas on how our society could be transformed – to everyone’s benefit – are not just intellectual speculations: they are based on her experiences, and on those of the many people with disability with whom she has worked.
There is a growing demand for information about ‘diversity and inclusion’. This book, with its keen insight into what it means to be in meaningful relationship ‘with’ one another, and in particular how we as a society choose to relate to leaders and pioneers of a more progressive world, breaks new ground on those subjects.
“I encourage you to read this book with a sense of urgency because the sooner you do, the better chance we collectively have to see the blindingly obvious state of the world and why/how this needs to change. Minnie’s beautifully crafted words have shed a unique spectrum of light on what it takes to truly ‘be’ and what it means to genuinely stand ‘with’ each other as we look to design an accessible, inclusive and equitable future.”
“Thought-provoking and richly readable, this warm-hearted life story seems certain to become a classic. It’s both an important book and a page-turner. The experience of what the world calls disability is vividly explored through Minnie’s tireless experiments in ‘how to navigate life, how to live well, how to be in the world’. She describes both challenges and rewards in an intimate, lively, engaging way. As she says, ‘I have always tried to step out of the predictable’”
Author bio:
Minnie Baragwanath has always had a love of language and the written word. Before her sight deteriorated during her teenage years as a result of a congenital sight condition, she read widely and always imagined she would become a writer one day. However, this dream became more distant as her sight worsened and her access to the literary world gradually disappeared from view.
Despite struggling to see her books, Minnie persevered, majoring in English Literature during her Bachelor of Arts degree in her late teens, and then completing a Bachelor of Communications in her mid-20s. Today, 30 years on and thanks to the advent of new technology, including digital platforms and audio books, the literary world is now, finally, wide open to her.
At the time of writing Blindingly Obvious Minnie was living in Auckland New Zealand with her niece Caitlin and wee dog Floyd. However, shortly after her book was published in 2023, Minnie made the decision to move to Whanganui, a small progressive town in the North Island of New Zealand with a vibrant creative community. Minnie consciously made this move so she could continue her writing and also be creative in other fields.
Blindingly Obvious is her first book, and she hopes it will not be her last.
To find out more about Minnie visit www.minnieb.co.nz
“Minnie’s journey is truly eye-opening on how to live a life of increasing awareness and responsiveness to challenges and possibilities. Her growing clarity matched with her deepening commitment to serve is offered here in engaging and inspiring ways.”
“If Minnie’s word is ‘with’, then mine is ‘imagine’: imagine life for access citizens in an inaccessible world; imagine having the determination to realise dignified change in spite of such adversity; imagine a world where everyone’s potential is reached. This book is a gift and a challenge to all of us. Minnie’s incredible and deeply personal story will capture you. Minnie charts her journey as blind woman alongside the social change of the disability world: from charity to accessibility, and now to possibility.
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