Research Catalog

Title

How to say Babylon : a memoir / Safiya Sinclair.

Author

Sinclair, Safiya

Publication

• New York : 37Ink/Simon & Schuster, 2023.
• ©2023

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

x, 335 pages; 24 cm

Summary

"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" --

Subject

• Sinclair, Safiya
• 2000-2099
• African American women authors > 21st century > Biography
• Women poets, American > Biography
• Women college teachers > United States > Biography
• Rastafarians > Biography
• Jamaicans > Biography
• Fathers and daughters
• African American women authors
• Jamaicans
• Rastafarians
• Women college teachers
• Women poets, American
• United States
• Jamaica

Genre/Form

• Autobiographies.
• Biographies.

Note

• "Read with Jenna"--Jacket.

Contents

Author's note -- Prologue -- Budgerigar -- The man who would be god -- Domain of the marvelous -- Fisherman's daughter -- Unclean women -- Bettah must come -- Revelations -- As the twig is bent -- Chicken merry hawk -- Hydra -- Age of wonder -- Moth in amber -- Medusa -- My Eurydice -- The red belt -- False idol -- Book of Esther -- Not Hollywood -- Through the fire -- Silver -- Lionheart -- Galatea -- Dance of Salome -- Leaving Sequestra -- Coven -- Jezebel -- Harbinger of Babylon -- Mermaid -- Daughter of Lilith -- The red door -- Iphigenia -- Jumbie bird -- I woman.

Call Number

Sc E 23-1337

ISBN

• 9781982132330
• 1982132337
• 9798885797108 (canceled/invalid)
• 9781982132354 (canceled/invalid)

OCLC

1399564128

Author

Sinclair, Safiya, author.

Title

How to say Babylon : a memoir / Safiya Sinclair.

Publisher

New York : 37Ink/Simon & Schuster, 2023.

Copyright Date

©2023

Edition

First 37Ink/Simon & Schuster hardcover edition.

Type of Content

text

Type of Medium

unmediated

Type of Carrier

volume

Local Note

Schomburg copy with dust jacket.

Chronological Term

2000-2099

Local Subject

Black author.

Research Call Number

Sc E 23-1337