Land O’ Fire

Based on the story of two voyages of the HMS The Beagle to Tierra del Fuego in the 1830’s, Luis Santeiro’s Land O’Fire is the story of South American Indians plucked from their home and transported to Victorian England to be “christianized.” The growing attachment of one of the Indians, Jemmy Button, to his surrogate father, Captain Fitzroy, leads to inevitable heartbreak when Fitzroy returns the Indians to their home. Told from the point of view of the Indians, Land O’Fire is a remarkably timely work, hilarious at times yet always keenly insightful in its examination of life interfered with and forever damaged by association with a ” superior” culture.