Book Review: How to Say Babylon: A Memoir by Safiya Sinclair
How to Say Babylon: A Memoir by Safiya Sinclair
Publisher: 37 Ink
Publication Date: October 3, 2023
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Publisher’s Description:
Throughout her childhood, Safiya Sinclair’s 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 woman’s 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. Safiya’s 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 father’s 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 Safiya’s voice grows, lyrically and poetically, a collision course is set between them.
How to Say Babylon is Sinclair’s 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 Babylon is 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.
How to Say Babylon is Safiya Sinclair’s memoir of growing up in a strict Rastafarian household. I learned so much about that culture – all I knew up to this point was that Bob Marley was a Rastafarian and that smoking pot has a role in it. Safiya was not allowed to cut her dreadlocks or wear pants. Her father was intent on making sure she wasn’t corrupted by the outside world – what he called Babylon. She wasn’t allowed to have friends who weren’t Rasta. When she starts attending an elite private school on scholarship, she’s made of fun of by the other kids for being what they call a dirty Rasta.
Safiya’s father also beats her and her siblings when they disobey him, even for minor infractions. The belt he beats them with hangs up where it’s visible and can remind everyone of what’s coming for them if they act up. When Safiya gets older, her mother helps her submit her poetry to competitions and she becomes a fairly well-known poet in Jamaica at a young age. You can tell reading this book that she is a poet. Her prose is beautiful – so descriptive. The book reads like a novel. I had to keep reminding myself I was reading a memoir. Highly recommended.
(I received a complimentary copy of this book for review.)
