Welcome! I am Eliana Tobias. I was born in Santiago, Chile, to immigrant parents who escaped the Holocaust.

My rich experience of political turmoil, of listening to stories of the Holocaust when Jewish communities in Europe were shattered, of losing family in Chile under military dictatorship, and living in Peru during a time of intense civil conflict, fueled by my passion to write about the ways in which people caught in devastation rebuild their lives.

“Eliana Tobias’s gripping and poignant historical novel immerses us in the turmoil of Peru’s brutal political conflict and the powerful forces that drive immigration. Through her lived experience in Peru and her uncluttered, elegant prose, she breathes life into her fully realized characters and the chaotic worlds they inhabit. Their courageous, heart-wrenching journey intimately reveals the profound challenges faced by countless people worldwide who are forced into the unknown as they flee their homes and countries due to armed conflict. In the Belly of the Horse reminds us of our most luminous selves, amidst the darkness, and that in the end ‘memories make us.”

Sylvia Taylor, author of Beckoned by the Sea and The Fisher Queen