QS36501013083How to Say Babylon: A Memoir

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.

Safiya Sinclair was born and raised in Montego Bay, Jamaica. She is the author of the poetry collection Cannibal, 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 Associations 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.

An essential memoir. Sinclairs devotion to language has been lifelong, and How to Say Babylon is the result. This book is lit from the inside by Sinclairs determination to learn and live freely, and to see her beloveds freed, too.Jesmyn Ward, author ofLet Us Descend

“How to Say Babylonis a narrative marvel, the testimony of an artist who literally writes her way out of a life of repression, isolation and abuse into one of art, freedom, love and wonder. To read it is to believe that words can save, words can heal, and words can imbue us with near divine power.”Marlon James, author ofABrief History of Seven Killings, winner of the Man BookerPrize andBlack Leopard, Red Wolf

• Publisher:37 Ink (October 3, 2023)
• Language:English
• Hardcover:352 pages
• ISBN-10:1982132337
• ISBN-13:9781982132330
• Item Weight:1.06 pounds
• Dimensions:6.13 x 0.91 x 9 inches