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. _________________