Book Review: How to Say Babylon by Safiya Sinclair

 

About:

With echoes of Educated and Born a Crime, How to Say Babylon is the stunning story of the author’s struggle to break free of her rigid Rastafarian upbringing, ruled by her father’s strict patriarchal views and repressive control of her childhood, to find her own voice as a woman and poet.

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.'

My Thoughts

This memoir has to be one of if not the best memoir I have ever read in my entire life. Safiya Sinclair clearly took her time to paint a very clear picture of what her life was like growing up Rastafarian.

Hers is a story of pain and glory. What I absolutely love and appreciate about this story is the uniqueness of it. I was happy to learn more about Rastafarisnism customs especially.

Safiya and her family went through a lot, all members. Her father, I think is the most notable character. I love how in the midst of all the trauma the family experienced growing up with him, I cant help but feeling it made all of them stronger. I felt sad for him because, it seemed he had a vision of how his life would have turned out and felt like a failure in a way.

I cannot wait for my book club to unpack this.

This is a masterpiece.