The Bookish Mindset

Overview:

Title: How to Say Babylon
Author: Safiya Sinclair
Published: October 2023
Genre: Non-Fiction, Memoir
Themes: Family, racism, identity.

One sentence summary: Following poet and author Safiya Sinclair, How To Say Babylon is her memoir of a life growing up Jamaican in a Rastafarian household.

One sentence review: “You were born too sensitive for this world”

Review:

Following poet and author Safiya Sinclair, How To Say Babylon is her memoir of a life growing up Jamaican in a Rastafarian household.

We’re taken inside a Rasta household and involved in what life was like for Sinclair and her siblings. She teaches us about the Rasta ways her father taught and enforced. If you’ve not read much about the Rasta religion then this is a brilliant piece to start with.

From early on you can tell Sinclair is a poet; her writing is beautifully lyrical and oh so poignant. It sings to you from the page and takes you on her journey of freedom with her. It’s one to be savoured for sure.

The journey is not linear and not paved in happiness, but the little pockets of hope and joy are certainly there. It really was a delight to read.

There are so many beautiful quotes and passages in this book, it was hard to pick just a few, but enjoy these as a sampler of Sinclairs’s stunning words:

“You were born too sensitive for this world”

“A book, I soon learned, was time travel. Each page held irrefutable power.”

“I had been writing, and it felt like oxygen.”

“Poetry was the voice I had forged because for so long I had been voiceless; I had written every word because I wanted him to hear me. Now I knew he never would.”

“She stroked her short curls and smiled. “Happy to be rid of the parts that felt like baggage,” she said, “and to be more myself.””

If reading more is something that you’re looking at doing this year then should check my reading challenge out here! Read nine books from nine prompts over the first six months of the year and be entered into a draw to win a bundle of bookish goodies.

If you’d like to get yourself a copy, you can support local bookshops while doing so on Bookshop.org with this link here.

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And don’t forget to check out my other blogs and reviews – you can find books with similar themes in the same folder link below, or click back onto blogs to see the whole offering.

Last updated 03/03/2025