We Are Made of Earth
We Are Made Of Earth by Panos Karnezis
Reviewed by Linda
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Thank you to @myriad_editions for sending this over to us! <3
For the privileged and unaffected, the COVID-19 pandemic has stripped us away from our daily freedom and niceties. But what has become of the most vulnerable and faceless of society - the asylum seekers - whose basic human right it is to seek and enjoy freedom and asylum from persecution?
We seem to have turned a blind eye as the crisis has exacerbated the hostility towards those seeking refuge on our shores or worse, wiped out hundreds of hopefuls in camps across the globe.
I read We Are Made of Earth by Panos Karnezis a while back, but have been sitting on the review for a while. Karnezis doesn’t sugarcoat - it may not be the sort of book you want to read right now but it’s a powerful read that deserves the attention of readers far and wide nonetheless.
Let me set the scene. An overcrowded dinghy capsizes in the Mediterranean off the shores of a small and practically uninhabited Greek island. Amongst the passengers, a doctor, an old man, and a young boy are the last few to survive the perilous waves with only one life jacket between them. The doctor saves his own life at the expense of another and thus, it is him and a young boy who makes it to the finish line, arriving at a seasonal circus. Before continuing their onward journey, they are in the company of the circus owner, his wife, and the circus elephant.
We Are Made of Earth is heartbreaking and deeply poignant but definitely not the expected narrative of the refugee crisis that you might have become accustomed to hearing about. In the news, a lot of focus is given to faceless statistics and the physical journey but only Karnezis writes about the inner compass of an individual with nothing to lose but everything to gain.
As the lockdown begins to ease, will our nation begin to remember those who are seeking support and sanctuary in us the most?
