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The Eyes of the Earth
A seventy-three-year-old homeless refugee performs unnoticed magic and acts of quiet heroism. No one imagines that she will turn the world upside down.
La Tortuga arrives in the surreal wreckage of Mexico City longing for just one thing; her own bed. But the concrete-skinned city is steeped in the pain of colonisation, exploitation and corruption. She must join its broken and weary inhabitants who persevere, as their culture's vivid colours and memories infuse them all with an urge to survive.
As La Tortuga pursues her mission, an oppressive System of Monsters that criminalises migrants, limits housing access, and destroys forests, tries to stop her. Hostels vanish when she approaches them, and migrant shelters have shut down. She forms an unlikely friendship with a US tourist and encounters a scared, half-bald child who sees the internal maps of things using an old dentist's mirror. But when the tourist tries to help, he inadvertently places the child in grave danger.
Nevertheless, La Tortuga must find and confront the System of Monsters before exhaustion extinguishes her magical abilities.
The Eyes of the Earth lays bare the bones of the world, decodes injustice, unravels inequality, rescues dignity, and reveals the essence of humanity; its pains and potential.
La Tortuga arrives in the surreal wreckage of Mexico City longing for just one thing; her own bed. But the concrete-skinned city is steeped in the pain of colonisation, exploitation and corruption. She must join its broken and weary inhabitants who persevere, as their culture's vivid colours and memories infuse them all with an urge to survive.
As La Tortuga pursues her mission, an oppressive System of Monsters that criminalises migrants, limits housing access, and destroys forests, tries to stop her. Hostels vanish when she approaches them, and migrant shelters have shut down. She forms an unlikely friendship with a US tourist and encounters a scared, half-bald child who sees the internal maps of things using an old dentist's mirror. But when the tourist tries to help, he inadvertently places the child in grave danger.
Nevertheless, La Tortuga must find and confront the System of Monsters before exhaustion extinguishes her magical abilities.
The Eyes of the Earth lays bare the bones of the world, decodes injustice, unravels inequality, rescues dignity, and reveals the essence of humanity; its pains and potential.
240 pages, Paperback
First published November 15, 2024
3 people are currently reading
33 people want to read
About the author
Tamara Pearson
4 books10 followersTamara Pearson is an Australian-Mexican journalist, world news editor, activist, and literary fiction author. Living in Puebla, Mexico, she campaigns for refugee rights and the environment. Her feature and investigative journalism focuses on global inequality and the Global South, the climate, and human rights.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
January 7, 2025
"La Tortuga had always walked in uncomfortable shoes. Pain, she understood, was built into everything, and nothing worked well or did what it was supposed to. That was one of the reasons she was a fixer. There was so much to fix."
Pearson's strengths as a writer are at full power in the Eyes of the Earth, an ambitious, lyrical and often achingly tender book about a woman who gets on with it, a man who doesn't have to, and a beautiful, broken, world. The book centers around 73-year-old La Tortuga, a hero for the ages, who arrives with her backpack and her strength as an undocumented migrant to Mexico, fleeing a too-familiar combination of personal and political violence. Contrasting La Tortuga, we have Henry, a young American on a trip to find himself. Both Henry and La Tortuga - and a major child character Miguelito - are compelling, engaging protagonists, rendered with Pearson's potent mix of warm empathy and lurking anger. These are certainly the avatars that Pearson intends them to be, but they are also people whose journeys we invest in, recognising parts of ourselves. Pearson peppers the book with interlude portraits of migrants, leveraging a lifetime of observation, to render as seen many who are not.
"Marvin and his friends made short funny videos dressed in some of the random things people had donated to the migrant shelter; a pointy hat, a glittery suit jacket, sports vests. At night when he couldn't sleep he would balance his phone on his forehead. the next morning he would wake up and it would still be there. He laughed and joked his way through life. Even when he was riding on the roof of the train, he had stood up and waved his hands in the air as it passed through towns."
It is in the details that this novel soars, whether describing the people of Mexico City, the waste dumps or the magical, delightful forms of alebrige.
This attention to details somehow pulls together the ambitious tonal scope of the novel, which includes magical realism and political commentary.
It's not perfect, there is the odd clunky sentence and the sections covering avatars of evil sat a little awkwardly alongside the empathetic approach to individuals for me, but they are minor. This is a much more polished novel that Pearson's first outing, and features a distinct, unique, passionate voice that never falters in its focus on the story.
Pearson's strengths as a writer are at full power in the Eyes of the Earth, an ambitious, lyrical and often achingly tender book about a woman who gets on with it, a man who doesn't have to, and a beautiful, broken, world. The book centers around 73-year-old La Tortuga, a hero for the ages, who arrives with her backpack and her strength as an undocumented migrant to Mexico, fleeing a too-familiar combination of personal and political violence. Contrasting La Tortuga, we have Henry, a young American on a trip to find himself. Both Henry and La Tortuga - and a major child character Miguelito - are compelling, engaging protagonists, rendered with Pearson's potent mix of warm empathy and lurking anger. These are certainly the avatars that Pearson intends them to be, but they are also people whose journeys we invest in, recognising parts of ourselves. Pearson peppers the book with interlude portraits of migrants, leveraging a lifetime of observation, to render as seen many who are not.
"Marvin and his friends made short funny videos dressed in some of the random things people had donated to the migrant shelter; a pointy hat, a glittery suit jacket, sports vests. At night when he couldn't sleep he would balance his phone on his forehead. the next morning he would wake up and it would still be there. He laughed and joked his way through life. Even when he was riding on the roof of the train, he had stood up and waved his hands in the air as it passed through towns."
It is in the details that this novel soars, whether describing the people of Mexico City, the waste dumps or the magical, delightful forms of alebrige.
This attention to details somehow pulls together the ambitious tonal scope of the novel, which includes magical realism and political commentary.
It's not perfect, there is the odd clunky sentence and the sections covering avatars of evil sat a little awkwardly alongside the empathetic approach to individuals for me, but they are minor. This is a much more polished novel that Pearson's first outing, and features a distinct, unique, passionate voice that never falters in its focus on the story.
September 8, 2025
I haven't come across writing this vivid and beautiful-- well, maybe never. There is so much description, I really feel like I can see and hear and even smell everything. And Tortuga is such an amazing character-- so brave but quiet in it.
I have a friend from Mexico City, and I've read news stories, but this writing is like being immersed. And the themes are so important right now, when so much seems hopeless. How can one person make a real difference? This makes me want to believe in people and that there's magic in the world.
I have a friend from Mexico City, and I've read news stories, but this writing is like being immersed. And the themes are so important right now, when so much seems hopeless. How can one person make a real difference? This makes me want to believe in people and that there's magic in the world.
March 17, 2025
This book was beautifully written. It is tragic and sad at times, hopeful and encouraging at others. It gives readers a unique perspective of magical realism with the refugee experience. My heart broke for La Tortuga and Miguelito. It’s a great book and I definitely recommend it.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews