How to Say Babylon: A Memoir

Published in 2023, How to Say Babylon is a memoir written by the Jamaican poet Safiya Sinclair. The memoir explores Sinclair’s strict Rastafari upbringing in Jamaica and how her love of writing helped her eventually find freedom and beauty in both Jamaica and the greater world. The book explores themes of The Power of Girlhood and Womanhood, Family Expectations and Dynamics, and Literature as a Form of Liberation. Sinclair is a published poet; therefore, her writing is rich with description, providing a lush, vivid, and haunting illustration of Jamaica and life in her strict father’s home.

How to Say Babylon has been compared to other recently acclaimed memoirs, such as Tara Westover’s Educated (2018) and Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime (2016). Like those memoirs, it was a critical success, and was named as one of the best books in 2023 by the New York Times, NPR, and Barack Obama.

This guide refers to the 2023 hardcover edition of the memoir.

Content Warning: The source material features descriptions and discussions of child sexual abuse, child abuse, physical abuse, suicide and suicidal ideation, racism, misogyny, intimate partner violence, and grooming and predatory behavior.