La Syrena: Visions of a Syrian Mermaid from Space

by Banah el-Ghadbanah and Banah el Ghadbanah

Winner of the Dzanc Diverse Voices Prize
LA SYRENA. For me home is in the water. When I go to the sea I want to swim forever and never look back. But I know I would die and the earth needs me on shore. My home is Syria and Syria for me is like the sea. I want nothing more than to jump in and swim around forever. In Syria I am declared wanted, like so many of us displaced lunar divas. The longing I feel is the deepest kind. It could crack the whole earth open. I am a Lumerian from Ancient Sumeria, a southern space creature in a northern world, LA SYRNENA, zhe is my destiny.

To be queer and syrienne and femme is like being a mermaid in space. You are doubly displaced--both from the water and from the land. You come from the ancient waters of another planet, and you float among the stars, searching for a place to call home. On your journey you meet other displaced lunar beings and they remind you of your ancestors. Together you form satellite cartographies, you become a dance of ancestral water and the lush starry landscape where possibility lives.

In this collection, each poem flows like water on the page. The author weaves in stories و mantras و revolutionary messages و the movement of arabic letters و the memory of Sumerian cuneiform. This book is a hybrid creature between poem-story-form that crosses genres like it crosses dimensions. In this work, you are the mermaid. You are the forever migrant, a traveler between the oceanic and the extraterrestrial, across continents and planets. You are a time traveler, and you speak many languages. You are LA SYRENA, conjuring your own space to feel free.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 195053944X
• ISBN13: 9781950539444
• Release Date: August 2022
• Publisher: Dzanc Books
• Length: 160 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.4" x 8.4"