How To Say Babylon: A Memoir by Safiya Sinclair (Paperback)

Nonfiction – Biography & Autobiography – Memoir

RELEASE DATE: 7/9/24 (WILL SHIP DIRECTLY FROM OUR SUPPLIER’S WAREHOUSE)

With echoes ofEducatedandBorn a Crime,How to Say Babylonis the stunning story of the authors struggle to break free of her rigid Rastafarian upbringing, ruled by her fathers strict patriarchal views and repressive control of her childhood, to find her own voice as a woman and poet.

Throughout her childhood, Safiya Sinclairs father, a volatile reggae musician and militant adherent to a strict sect of Rastafari, became obsessed with her purity, in particular, with the threat of what Rastas call Babylon, the immoral and corrupting influences of the Western world outside their home. He worried that womanhood would make Safiya and her sisters morally weak and impure, and believed a womans highest virtue was her obedience.

In an effort to keep Babylon outside the gate, he forbade almost everything. In place of pants, the women in her family were made to wear long skirts and dresses to cover their arms and legs, head wraps to cover their hair, no make-up, no jewelry, no opinions, no friends. Safiyas mother, while loyal to her father, nonetheless gave Safiya and her siblings the gift of books, including poetry, to which Safiya latched on for dear life. And as Safiya watched her mother struggle voicelessly for years under housework and the rigidity of her fathers beliefs, she increasingly used her education as a sharp tool with which to find her voice and break free. Inevitably, with her rebellion comes clashes with her father, whose rage and paranoia explodes in increasing violence. As Safiyas voice grows, lyrically and poetically, a collision course is set between them.

How to Say Babylonis Sinclairs reckoning with the culture that initially nourished but ultimately sought to silence her; it is her reckoning with patriarchy and tradition, and the legacy of colonialism in Jamaica. Rich in lyricism and language only a poet could evoke,How to Say Babylonis both a universal story of a woman finding her own power and a unique glimpse into a rarefied world we may know how to name, Rastafari, but one we know little about.

AUTHOR BIO:

Safiya Sinclair was born and raised in Montego Bay, Jamaica. She is the author of the poetry collectionCannibal, winner of a Whiting Writers’ Award, the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Metcalf Award in Literature, the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Poetry, and the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry. Cannibal was selected as one of the American Library Association’s Notable Books of the Year, was a finalist for the PEN Center USA Literary Award and the Seamus Heaney First Book Award in the UK, and was longlisted for the PEN Open Book Award and the Dylan Thomas Prize.

Some memoirs grab you by the throat with their truth-is-stranger-than-fiction storylines.Some mesmerize with the power and beauty of the writing.Every once in a while, a book comes along that does both.Sinclair has told a story that is at once universal-who has notstruggled with their family at some point– and uniquely her own, a story of growing upas a voiceless girl in a strict Rastafari household. Both beautifully rendered and an incredible story,How to Say Babylonis atour de force.Natasha Trethewey,New York Timesbestselling author ofMemorial Drive: A Daughters Memoir
When a gifted poet applies her hand to prose, magical, even revelatory things can result. Happily, this is the case with Safiya Sinclair of. In this lyrical, startling, and magnetic memoir aboutgrowing up Rastafari, she weaves a story rich in unsettling visions that goad and haunt while waves crest and soar in the background, beckoning a young girl toward a mysterious future. Her words sparkle like silver or pour like lava, depending on theneed.Jabari Asim, author ofYonder,a 2021New York TimesNotable Book
How to Say Babylonis a poet’s memoir, a daughters lyric, a love letter, a rebellion, and an incantation. From the material of history and mythology, both personal and political, Safiya Sinclair has gorgeously and lovingly assembled a story with radiant transformative power. I couldnt put it down.Nadia Owusu, author ofAftershocks