Fountaindale Public Library

How to say Babylon, a memoir, Safiya Sinclair

eng

autobiography

no index present

non fiction

How to say Babylon

bibliography

1402026235

Safiya Sinclair

Thorndike Press Large Print Biography and Memoir

a memoir

"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"--, Provided by publisher

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

adult