Safiya Sinclair – författare

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2024 WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 'Vivid and empowering' GILLIAN ANDERSON'A stunning book’ BERNARDINE EVARISTO‘Dazzling’ TARA WESTOVER ‘A story about hope, imagination and resilience’GUARDIAN An award-winning, inspiring memoir of family, education and resilience. 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.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?How to Say Babylon is an unforgettable story of a young woman’s determination to live life on her own terms.A Guardian and Observer summer read.‘I adored this book … Unforgettable’ ELIF SHAFAK ‘Electrifying’OBSERVER ‘To read it is to believe that words can save’ MARLON JAMES ‘Breathless, scorching’NEW YORK TIMES

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2024 WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 'Vivid and empowering' GILLIAN ANDERSON'A stunning book’ BERNARDINE EVARISTO‘Dazzling’ TARA WESTOVER ‘A story about hope, imagination and resilience’GUARDIAN An award-winning, inspiring memoir of family, education and resilience. 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.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?How to Say Babylon is an unforgettable story of a young woman’s determination to live life on her own terms.A Guardian and Observer summer read.‘I adored this book … Unforgettable’ ELIF SHAFAK ‘Electrifying’OBSERVER ‘To read it is to believe that words can save’ MARLON JAMES ‘Breathless, scorching’NEW YORK TIMES

SHORTLISTED FOR THE 2024 WOMEN'S PRIZE FOR NON-FICTION 'Vivid and empowering' GILLIAN ANDERSON'A stunning book’ BERNARDINE EVARISTO‘Dazzling’ TARA WESTOVER ‘A story about hope, imagination and resilience’GUARDIAN An award-winning, inspiring memoir of family, education and resilience. 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.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?How to Say Babylon is an unforgettable story of a young woman’s determination to live life on her own terms.A Guardian and Observer summer read.‘I adored this book … Unforgettable’ ELIF SHAFAK ‘Electrifying’OBSERVER ‘To read it is to believe that words can save’ MARLON JAMES ‘Breathless, scorching’NEW YORK TIMES

Colliding with and confronting The Tempest and postcolonial identity, the poems in Safiya Sinclair’s Cannibal explore Jamaican childhood and history, race relations in America, womanhood, otherness, and exile. She evokes a home no longer accessible and a body at times uninhabitable, often mirrored by a hybrid Eve/Caliban figure. Blooming with intense lyricism and fertile imagery, these full-blooded poems are elegant, mythic, and intricately woven. Here the female body is a dark landscape; the female body is cannibal. Sinclair shocks and delights her readers with her willingness to disorient and provoke, creating a multitextured collage of beautiful and explosive poems.

A beautiful debut collection from Jamaican poet Safiya Sinclair that draws on our colonial history and speaks powerfully to our present moment.Shortlisted for Seamus Heaney First Collection Poetry Prize 2021 A Guardian most anticipated book for 2020'Safiya Sinclair bursts onto the shelves with this richly powerful debut collection' – ScotsmanColliding with and confronting Shakespeare's The Tempest and postcolonial identity, the poems in Safiya Sinclair's Cannibal beautifully evoke the poet's Jamaican childhood and reach beyond to explore history, race relations in America, womanhood, otherness, and exile. She evokes a home no longer accessible and a body at times uninhabitable, often mirrored by a hybrid Eve/Caliban figure. Blooming with intense lyricism and fertile imagery, these full-blooded poems are elegant, mythic, and intricately woven. Here the female body is a dark landscape; the female body is cannibal. Sinclair shocks and delights her readers with her willingness to disorient and provoke. Cannibal marks the arrival of a thrilling and essential lyrical voice.'Cannibal is nothing less than an entrancing debut that reveals the teeming intellect and ravishing lucidity of a young poet in full possession of her literary powers.' – Major Jackson