This event was recorded on February 29, 2024 at TACAW, as part of the 2024 Winter Words series, in partnership with Aspen Public Radio.
What is it like to leave everything you know behind? Listen in for a Winter Words talk with memoirist and award-winning poet Safiya Sinclair, as she discusses her new book, “How to Say Babylon.” This Read with Jenna TODAY show book club pick examines the author’s rigid Rastafarian upbringing and her efforts to break free from the patriarchal structure which defined her youth.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Safiya Sinclair was born and raised in Montego Bay, Jamaica. She is the author of the memoir How to Say Babylon, a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award and the Kirkus Prize, a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, a Washington Post Top 10 Book of 2023, one of The Atlantic’s 10 Best Books of 2023, a TIME Magazine Top 10 Nonfiction Book of 2023, a Read with Jenna/TODAY Show Book Club pick, and one of Barack Obama’s Favorite Books of 2023. How to Say Babylon was also named a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker, NPR, The Guardian, the Los Angeles Times, Vulture, Harper’s Bazaar, and Barnes & Noble, among others, and was an ALA Notable Book of the Year. The audiobook of How to Say Babylon was named a Best Audiobook of the Year by Audible and AudioFile magazine.
She is also the author of the poetry collection Cannibal, winner of a Whiting Writers’ Award, the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Metcalf Award, the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Poetry, the Phillis Wheatley Book Award, and the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry. Cannibal was selected as one of the American Library Association’s Notable Books of the Year, and was a finalist for the PEN Center USA Literary Award and the Seamus Heaney First Book Award in the UK, and was longlisted for the PEN Open Book Award and the Dylan Thomas Prize.
Sinclair’s other honours include a Pushcart Prize, fellowships from the Poetry Foundation, Civitella Ranieri Foundation, the Elizabeth George Foundation, MacDowell, Yaddo, the Bread Loaf Writers’ Conference, and the Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, Granta, The Nation, Poetry, Kenyon Review, the Oxford American, and elsewhere. She is currently an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at Arizona State University.
ABOUT THE MODERATOR
Mitzi Rapkin is the host and producer of the literary podcast, First Draft: A Dialogue on Writing. For the last eight years, Mitzi has read a book a week and interviewed the author. First Draft features fiction, non-fiction, poetry, and essay writers. With a specific focus on craft, Rapkin and her guests explore the decisions and psychology that went into the book being discussed, the themes of a writer’s work, and questions focused on the human experience. George Saunders said Rapkin “is one of the most talented and passionate interviewers in the world. What makes her great is her precision and her genuine curiosity, which transforms the interview into an urgent conversation. The time flies by, and I always learn something new about my own work.” You can learn more about Rapkin, the podcast, and listen to the more than 315 archived interviews at www.firstdraftwriters.com.