How to Say Babylon: A Memoir
by Safiya Sinclair
🏆 Winner 2024 National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography
Recommendations from our site
“This memoir is another story of literary self-liberation in many ways, as Safiya Sinclair finds poetry as a pathway out of her abusive, extremely restricted, patriarchal upbringing…Sinclair opens her book with the 1966 visit to Jamaica of Ethiopian emperor Haile Selassie, whom the Rastafari believed was a living god…Sinclair’s father was just a toddler at the time but he was inspired by Marley’s music to join the Rastafari. Sinclair is particularly adept at bringing a personal lens to these larger historical forces and vice versa. It’s a really fascinating memoir.” Read more...
The Best Memoirs: The 2024 NBCC Autobiography Shortlist
May-lee Chai, Short Story Writer