Reviews - Hoe je Babylon zegt

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2.86k reviews for:

Hoe je Babylon zegt

Safiya Sinclair

4.53 AVERAGE

screamingbuddha's review against another edition

4.25

challenging dark emotional hopeful reflective relaxing tense medium-paced

sofleo's review against another edition

4.0

Wow, this was an incredibly powerful memoir that I’m surprised was on a Read with Jenna list. This book challenged me and my blind assumptions on a lot of things, namely Rastafari as a lifestyle and its integration (or lack thereof) in Jamaican society. To be perfectly honest, there wasn’t much I knew at all about it, and to hear about all aspects of it from someone who knew it most intimately was powerful. I also appreciated Sinclair’s notes about Jamaican political history and how that informed Rastafari; it wasn’t as though she as the author felt that she had to educate her white readers, but that she laid out threads of information that I as the reader could then pull to learn more about this part of the world that, embarrassingly, I’m only really aware of insofar as it’s portrayed in the media.

I can’t imagine the effort that it took to write this book and compile years and years and years of hardships. She describes some of that pain, but I truly can’t imagine the weight of it. It felt like an honor to be able to explore the most vulnerable parts of a person’s life, especially when those difficult moments seemed never ending.

At times, however, that never-endingness of heartbreak and hurt and pain was hard to get through. That feels bad to say about someone’s lived experience, but practically going year by year through traumas that were often repeated, promises and outlets that came oh so close to finally coming to fruition, etc. felt like a relentless weight and seemed to extend the story indefinitely. However, this could have been by design to simulate that stifling sense of feeling stuck that offers a more full sense of completeness once it is finally achieved.

Overall, this was a really powerful book that I’m glad I got to explore. Sinclair is a powerful writer and while I don’t know if I would necessarily pick up one of her books of poetry, I would be interested to read a novel of hers.