Little Fish - Paperback

by Sylvia Fox (Author), Irene Chin (Illustrator)

In this evocative debut novella-in-verse, Sylvia Fox crafts a hauntingly lyrical exploration of grief, trauma, and the search for self amidst a sea of memory and history. Little Fish plunges readers into the depths of an oceanic liminal space, where Flor, the protagonist, is adrift in her sorrow and contemplation.

Pregnant and grieving the loss of everything she holds dear, Flor encounters the sea goddess Iemanjá, the ghost of her late mother, and mythic figures from Brazilian folklore such as the trickster Saci Perere and the elusive Boto Cor-De-Rosa. Through a fever dream of loss and introspection, she navigates the treacherous waters of generational trauma and colonial legacies, seeking understanding and a path forward.

This moody and surreal narrative traverses the boundary between the real and the unreal, as Flor confronts the complexities of her family's past, including her mother's troubled history and the haunting echoes of colonial and slave histories. Little Fish is a poetic and emotional odyssey through a mystical Atlantic realm, where the waves of memory and grief intertwine to illuminate the profound connections between motherhood, daughterhood, and the fractured self.