Download How to Say Babylon: A Memoir

1
How
to
Say
Babylon
A
Memoir
Description
National Book Critics Circle Award Winner A New
York Book Best Book of the Year for The
Washington Post
Times Notable The New
Yorker Time The Atlantic Los Angeles Times
NPR Harper8217sBazaar Vulture Town
ampCountry San Francisco Chronicle Christian
Science Monitor Mother Jones
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Barack Obama A Read with Jenna Today Show Book
Club Pick 8220Imossible to put down...Each
lyrical line sings and soars, freeing the reader
as it did the writer.82218212Peple With
echoes of Educated and The Glass Castle, How to
Say Babylon is a 8220luhly observed and keenly
reflective chronicle8221(The Washington Post),
brilliantly recounting the author8217sstruggle
to break free of her rigid religious upbringing
and navigate the world on her own terms.
Throughout her childhood, Safiya
Sinclair8217sfather, a volatile reggae musician
and a militant adherent to a strict sect of
Rastafari, was obsessed with the ever- present
threat of the corrupting evils of the Western
world outside their home, and worried that
womanhood would make Safiya and her sisters
morally weak and impure. For him, a
woman8217shighest virtue was her obedience.
Safiya8217sextraordinary mother, though loyal
to her father, gave her the one gift she knew
would take Safiya beyond the stretch of beach and
mountains in Jamaica their family called home a
world of books, knowledge, and education she
conjured almost out of thin air. When she
introduced Safiya to poetry, Safiya8217svoice
awakened. As she watched her mother struggle
voicelessly for years under relentless
domesticity, Safiya8217srebellion against her
father8217srules set her on an inevitable
collision course with him. Her education became
the sharp tool to hone her own poetic voice and
carve her path to liberation. Rich in emotion and
page- turning drama, How to Say Babylon is
8220amelodious wave of memories8221of a woman
finding her own power (NPR).