The Documentary Podcast - Braille and me

Built around a game of braille Scrabble, Emma Tracey presents a celebration of braille, 200 years after it was invented. Emma, who’s been blind since birth, talks to others who love the six tiny dots: Geerat Vermeij, one of the world’s leading experts in molluscs; Yetnebersh Nigussie, an Ethiopian lawyer, who describes her blindness as "a lottery I won at the age of five"; Sheri Wells-Jensen, a linguistics professor who’s been a linguistic consultant on Star Trek and is on the US advisory board for messaging extra-terrestrial intelligence; Japanese concert pianist, Nobuyuki Tsujii, who learnt to play using braille music; and Emma's friend and Scrabble partner, Ellie. And there’s a chance encounter with the most famous braille user of them all, Stevie Wonder.
But can braille survive with the ever-increasing supply of tech that allows blind people to listen to, rather than feel, information?

Presenter: Emma Tracey
Producer: Adele Armstrong
Sound design: Steve Brooke
Editor: Richard Fenton-Smith

Published on Thursday, 17th April 2025.

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