Astounding.

Breathless, scorching.

Lushly observed and keenly reflective.

This memoir is a melodious wave of memories and interrogations that illustrates Sinclair's skill as both a poet and a storyteller.

As much a story of hard-fought survival as it is an artistic coming-of-age tale.

Lyrical.

It would be easy to think Sinclair’s eventual escape was inevitable. It was anything but. Time and again she tells of utter despair, of sinking into depression and of feeling worthless. It is a testimony to her brothers and sisters, her mother and aunt and her own sense of self that she found a way to nurture her creativity, mining the strength she needed to disobey her father and come into her own..

Sinclair writes of a chaotic yet magical childhood.

Striking.

With unparalleled lyricism and a command of language only a poet could possess, How to Say Babylon: A Memoir recounts Safiya Sinclair’s life as a Rastafarian child raised under the oppressive and patriarchal rule of her father.

A tale of reckoning and revelation.

Bruising.