How to Say Babylon
A Jamaican Memoir
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Narrated by:
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Safiya Sinclair
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By:
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Safiya Sinclair
About this listen
An extraordinary and inspiring memoir of family, education and resilience, from award-winning poet Safiya Sinclair.
There was more than one way to be lost, more than one way to be saved.
Born in Montego Bay, Jamaica, where luxury hotels line pristine white sand beaches, Safiya Sinclair grew up guarding herself against an ever-present threat. Her father, a volatile reggae musician and strict believer in a militant sect of Rastafari, railed against Babylon, the corrupting influence of the immoral Western world just beyond their gate. To protect the purity of the women in their family he forbade almost everything: nowhere but home and school, no friends but this family and no future but this path.
Her mother did what she could to bring joy to her children with books and poetry. But as Safiya’s imagination reached beyond its restrictive borders, her burgeoning independence brought with it ever greater clashes with her father. Soon she realised that if she was to live at all, she had to find some way to leave home. But how?
In seeking to understand the past of her family, Safiya Sinclair takes listeners inside a world that is little understood by those outside it and offers an astonishing personal reckoning. How to Say Babylon is an unforgettable story of a young woman’s determination to live life on her own terms.
©2023 Safiya Sinclair (P)2023 HarperCollins Publishers LimitedListeners also enjoyed...
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Critic reviews
‘Dazzling. Potent. Vital’ TARA WESTOVER
‘To read it is to believe that words can save’ MARLON JAMES
‘I adored this book … Unforgettable, heartbreaking and heartwarming’ ELIF SHAFAK
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Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World
- By: Jack Weatherford
- Narrated by: Jonathan Davis, Jack Weatherford
- Length: 14 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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The Mongol army led by Genghis Khan subjugated more lands and people in 25 years than the Romans did in 400. In nearly every country the Mongols conquered, they brought an unprecedented rise in cultural communication, expanded trade, and a blossoming of civilization.
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Golden Horde/Platinum Listen
- By Cynthia on 12-11-13
By: Jack Weatherford
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Flannery O'Connor and the Scandal of Faith
- By: Jessica Hooten Wilson, The Great Courses
- Narrated by: Jessica Hooten Wilson
- Length: 3 hrs and 5 mins
- Original Recording
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Across six revealing lectures, Professor Jessica Hooten Wilson will introduce you to one of the 20th century’s most fascinating and divisive writers in Flannery O’Connor and the Scandal of Faith. Beginning with an overview of her brief but remarkable life, Professor Wilson will then take you through an exploration of themes in O’Connor’s work and the hallmarks of her literary style. You’ll get a clearer picture of O’Connor’s historical and geographical context while digging into how her stories can transcend time and place.
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Fascinating life cut short
- By KRoss on 11-21-24
By: Jessica Hooten Wilson, and others
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Episodes
- The True Story of Two Friends & One Diagnosis
- By: Mara Altman, Kat Alexander
- Narrated by: Mara Altman, Kat Alexander
- Length: 7 hrs and 5 mins
- Original Recording
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In Episodes, lifelong best friends Kat and Mara take listeners on an unfiltered journey through friendship, mental illness, and survival. Kat, a successful professional, is preparing for marriage and motherhood. On her fourth round of IVF, it happened—a frantic call to Mara. Mara comes over to find Kat, her friend of 25 years—the one who'd always been levelheaded, hilarious, and over-the-top thoughtful—trying to jump through a window.
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Just listen!
- By AJ on 11-17-24
By: Mara Altman, and others
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Heroes Behind Headlines
- Only the Brave
- By: Ralph Pezzullo
- Narrated by: Ralph Pezzullo
- Length: 6 hrs and 33 mins
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How did DEA agents orchestrate the capture of one of the world’s most wanted weapons dealers? How does an all-female, unarmed group of rangers stop poachers from killing South Africa’s most majestic wild animals? And how did a scrappy crew of soldiers help desperate Afghans escape Kabul during the Taliban’s rapid takeover? Welcome to Heroes Behind Headlines: Only the Brave, where host Ralph Pezzullo takes you on deep dives into extraordinary true stories, told to you by the experts and the brave men and women who lived them.
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Great interview format
- By Ronald Gauvin on 11-21-24
By: Ralph Pezzullo
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Evil Has a Name
- The Untold Story of the Golden State Killer Investigation
- By: Paul Holes, Jim Clemente, Peter McDonnell
- Narrated by: Paul Holes, Jim Clemente
- Length: 6 hrs and 13 mins
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For his victims, for their families and for the investigators tasked with finding him, the senselessness and brutality of the Golden State Killer's acts were matched only by the powerlessness they felt at failing to uncover his identity. Then, on April 24, 2018, authorities arrested 72-year-old Joseph James DeAngelo at his home in Citrus Heights, Calif., based on DNA evidence linked to the crimes. Amazingly, it seemed, evil finally had a name. Please note: This work contains descriptions of violent crime and sexual assault and may not be suitable for all listeners.
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Audible Raises The Bar On True Crime Genre
- By R. Squyres on 11-16-18
By: Paul Holes, and others
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The Last Days of Cabrini-Green
- By: Ben Austen, Harrison David Rivers
- Narrated by: Ben Austen, Patina Miller, Harry Lennix, and others
- Length: 3 hrs and 32 mins
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In 1992, the deadliest year in Chicago’s history, seven-year-old Dantrell Davis was shot and killed in front of his elementary school inside the public housing complex Cabrini-Green. What happened to Dantrell led to a truce among Chicago’s gangs, but it also ignited a national panic about poverty and violence in America’s cities. Dantrell’s name would soon be used to demolish all of Chicago’s high-rise public housing, displacing tens of thousands of low-income families.
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Chicago Housibg
- By Ruby on 11-21-24
By: Ben Austen, and others
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The Demon Next Door
- By: Bryan Burrough
- Narrated by: Steve White
- Length: 2 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Best-selling author Bryan Burrough recently made a shocking discovery: The small town of Temple, Texas, where he had grown up, had harbored a dark secret. One of his high school classmates, Danny Corwin, was a vicious serial killer. In this chilling tale, Burrough raises important questions of whether serial killers can be recognized before they kill or rehabilitated after they do. It is also a story of Texas politics and power that led the good citizens of the town of Temple to enable a demon who was their worst nightmare.
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Odd narration choice
- By Amanda Fredericks on 03-08-19
By: Bryan Burrough
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Dear Cousin: The Stalking of Susan Fensten
- By: Ventureland
- Narrated by: Susan Fensten
- Length: 4 hrs and 24 mins
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Dear Cousin: The Stalking of Susan Fensten is the gripping true story of one woman's quest for long lost family. After the deaths of her sister and estranged father, Susan searches for relatives on an early online genealogy forum. When she meets cousins from her grandfather's other family, they're everything she'd hoped for—until it all goes to hell.
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Harrowing Case, Excellent Production
- By C Lopez on 07-12-24
By: Ventureland
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The Autobiography of Malcolm X
- As Told to Alex Haley
- By: Malcolm X, Alex Haley
- Narrated by: Laurence Fishburne
- Length: 16 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Experience a bold take on this classic autobiography as it’s performed by Oscar-nominated Laurence Fishburne. In this searing classic autobiography, originally published in 1965, Malcolm X, the Muslim leader, firebrand, and Black empowerment activist, tells the extraordinary story of his life and the growth of the Human Rights movement. His fascinating perspective on the lies and limitations of the American dream and the inherent racism in a society that denies its non-White citizens the opportunity to dream, gives extraordinary insight into the most urgent issues of our own time.
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it's Nearly perfect
- By Kerry on 09-16-20
By: Malcolm X, and others
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Elvis and Me
- By: Priscilla Beaulieu Presley
- Narrated by: Priscilla Beaulieu Presley
- Length: 7 hrs and 30 mins
- Unabridged
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The inspiration for the major motion picture Priscilla directed by Sofia Coppola, this New York Times best seller reveals the intimate story of Elvis Presley and Priscilla Presley, told by the woman who lived it.
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What a story!
- By Pen Name on 08-28-22
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How I Get It Done
- By: Shereen Marisol Meraji
- Narrated by: Shereen Marisol Meraji
- Length: 9 hrs and 53 mins
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In a series of deeply moving and inspiring conversations, host Shereen Marisol Meraji connects with successful women from all walks of life to reveal how they manage their careers and every aspect of their lives. Based on the long-running column from The Cut and New York Magazine.
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Relatable, helpful, and beautifully produced.
- By Anonymous User on 09-07-24
What listeners say about How to Say Babylon
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Letlhogonolo
- 03-02-24
The writing is wow.
“I try to write the ache into something tangible’ — @safiyasinclair
In How to say Babylon, Safiya does this remarkably. This memoir is truly a Jamaican memoir. Safiya is the first-born to young parents who looked to the Rastafarian faith as path to freedom.
In this book, Safiya writes for “every Sinclair girl who was still to come… to point the compass forwards: to change the shape of our lineage, the weight of her legacy”
In the most lyrically prose, Safiya unburdens herself and searingly recounts her childhood, growing up in poverty and under the authoritarian control of her father. Their lives moulded by him creating “the lifetime of wreckage that had almost pulled us under”
In many ways, it was Esther, her mother that fought her husband to create a path to freedom for her daughters, and ultimately for herself. First, by cutting her daughters’ hair. Second, by cutting hers, and cutting her ties to him. Finally, by belonging to herself.
In the end, this memoir is the story of “all the women in my family who bear blood-wound fixed deep by tragedy.”
It is a story about love, healing, forgiveness and redemption in all its complicated ways.
Safiya can craft a pulchritudinous sentence. Her writing is devastatingly visceral, every emotion, every moment of violence and harrowing memory excavates deep within as you page through the book.
Every word, every line is a love letter. This book has made an indelible impression on me.
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- Erika
- 10-07-23
Wow. Just wow.
What an exceptional book, narrated so beautifully by the author. It had me mesmerised, spellbound, entranced and enchanted.
Her words, her language, the story she tells - just wow.
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