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 also the author of the poetry collection Cannibal, winner of a Whiting Award, the American Academy of Arts and Letters’ Addison Metcalf Award in Literature, and the Prairie Schooner Book Prize in Poetry. Sinclair’s other honours include a Guggenheim Fellowship, and fellowships from the Poetry Foundation, the Civitella Rainieri Foundation, and the Elizabeth George Foundation. She is currently an Associate Professor of Creative Writing at Arizona State University.
