A review of How to Say Babylon by Safiya Sinclair

For not letting poetry get in the way of story: When I first started reading How to Say Babylon, I wondered if Sinclair’s natural poetic voice would too often overwhelm the thread of her story. It is true there were times when her poetic expressions left me treading water before finding firmer ground. But as I read on, I began to enjoy these occasional swells. Especially as Sinclair’s memoir as a daughter of a militant Rastafarian father demonstrated how these words enabled her to survive him. At the end of her memoir, I felt not only that I knew about Sinclair, but that I really heard Sinclair.

Available to buy at How To Say Babylon by Safiya Sinclair | Waterstones