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How to say Babylon : a Jamaican memoir

Sinclair, Safiya2024

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Summary

Born in Montego Bay, Jamaica, where luxury hotels line pristine white sand beaches, Safiya Sinclair grew up guarding herself against an ever-present threat. Preaching fire and brimstone, her father, a volatile reggae musician and strict believer in a militant sect of Rastafari, railed against Babylon, the immoral, corrupting influence of the Western world just beyond their gate. To protect the purity of the women in their family he forbade almost everything: no trousers, no short sleeves and no short skirts, no opinions, nowhere but home and school, no friends but this family and no future but this path. In seeking out the past of her family, Safiya Sinclair takes readers inside the world of Rastafari that is little understood by those outside it and delivers an astonishing, personal reckoning with family, history and the legacy of empire.