Books & Books in partnership with the Key West Literary Seminar presents

SAFIYA SINCLAIR
in-conversation with Ricardo Zegri 
discussing Sinclair's book
HOW TO SAY BABYLON

Tuesday, January 7th, 7:00pm ET
PEAR House Courtyard - 533 Eaton Street
Doors open at 6:30pm

With echoes of Educated and The Glass Castle, How to Say Babylon is a “lushly observed and keenly reflective chronicle” (The Washington Post), brilliantly recounting the author’s struggle to break free of her rigid religious upbringing and navigate the world on her own terms.

Throughout her childhood, Safiya Sinclair’s father, a volatile reggae musician and a militant adherent to a strict sect of Rastafari, was obsessed with the ever-present threat of the corrupting evils of the Western world outside their home, and worried that womanhood would make Safiya and her sisters morally weak and impure. For him, a woman’s highest virtue was her obedience.

Safiya’s extraordinary mother, though loyal to her father, gave her the one gift she knew would take Safiya beyond the stretch of beach and mountains in Jamaica their family called home: a world of books, knowledge, and education she conjured almost out of thin air. When she introduced Safiya to poetry, Safiya’s voice awakened. As she watched her mother struggle voicelessly for years under relentless domesticity, Safiya’s rebellion against her father’s rules set her on an inevitable collision course with him. Her education became the sharp tool to hone her own poetic voice and carve her path to liberation. Rich in emotion and page-turning drama, How to Say Babylon is “a melodious wave of memories” of a woman finding her own power (NPR).

About the Author: Safiya Sinclair was born and raised in Montego Bay, Jamaica. She is the internationally bestselling author of the memoir How to Say Babylon, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, and a finalist for the Women’s Prize for Non-Fiction and the Kirkus Prize. How to Say Babylon was included on over 17 Best Book of 2023 year-end lists, including the New York Times’ 100 Notable Books of the year, the Washington Post Top 10 Books of 2023, TIME Magazine’s Top 10 Nonfiction Books of 2023, and The Atlantic’s 10 Best Books of 2023. It was a Read with Jenna/TODAY Show Book Club pick and named one of President 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. Sinclair is currently a Professor of Creative Writing at Arizona State University. 

About the Moderator: Ricardo Zegri is a writer and working musician from the San Francisco Bay Area with a deep affection for pretentious beer and humble burritos. He is the winner of the 2025 Key West Literary Seminar Emerging Writer award in short story. His prose and poetry have appeared in the Welter Literary Journal, Gyroscope Review, Paragon Press, Chaleur Magazine, The Esthetic Apostle, and Mind Equals Blown, among various other coffee-stained zines. In 2023 he published a limited edition, handmade chapbook through Ethel Zine and Micro-Press.

This is an in-person event taking place outdoors. 
Registering ahead of time helps us to plan for a successful event but is not required.
In the event that attendance reaches capacity registered guests will be seated first.

REGISTER HERE