Jamaica Kincaid (born Elaine Cynthia Potter Richardson on May 25, 1949) is an Antiguan and American writer, essayist, gardener, and author about gardening. She was born in St. John's, which is the capital of Antigua and Barbuda. She currently lives in North Bennington, Vermont, and is Professor of African and African American Studies in Residence Emerita at Harvard University.

Biography

Jamaica Kincaid was born on May 25, 1949, in St. John's, Antigua. She lived in a home that was not very rich, with her mother, Annie Richardson Drew, who was educated and worked as a helper to a doctor, and her stepfather, David Drew, a carpenter. Kincaid was very close to her mother until her three brothers were born quickly, starting when she was nine years old. After her brothers were born, she felt upset with her mother, who focused more on caring for the brothers. Kincaid later said:

"Our family had the same amount of money, but there were more people to feed and clothe, so everything became less. Emotional things were also reduced. I got less of the good emotional things, but I got more of things I didn’t want, like cruelty and neglect."

In an interview with The New York Times, Kincaid said, "The way I became a writer was that my mother wrote my life for me and told it to me."

Kincaid received a British education because Antigua was not independent from the United Kingdom until 1981. She attended the Princess Margaret School and the Antiguan Girls School and worked as a seamstress. Though she was smart and often did well in school, her mother took her out of school at 16 to help support the family when her third brother was born, as her stepfather was sick and could no longer provide for the family. In 1966, when Kincaid was 16, her mother sent her to Scarsdale, a wealthy area in New York City, to work as an au pair. After that, Kincaid refused to send money home; she left no address and was cut off from her family until she returned to Antigua 20 years later.

In 1979, Kincaid married Allen Shawn, a composer and professor at Bennington College. Shawn was the son of William Shawn, a long-time editor at The New Yorker, and the brother of playwright Wallace Shawn. They had two children: a son, Harold, who works in music, and a daughter, Annie, who works in marketing. Kincaid and Shawn divorced in 2002.

Kincaid is a skilled gardener and has written many articles about gardening. She converted to Judaism in 1993 for family reasons and was president of Congregation Beth El, a synagogue in Bennington, during the 1990s.

While working as an au pair, Kincaid took evening classes at a community college. After three years, she left her job to attend Franconia College in New Hampshire on a full scholarship. She also studied photography at the New School for Social Research but left after a year. She returned to New York and began writing for magazines like Ingénue, The Village Voice, and Ms. magazine. Her first published article, "When I Was Seventeen," was about an interview with Gloria Steinem. She changed her name to Jamaica Kincaid in 1973 when her writing was first published. She explained that the name change was "a way for me to do things without being the same person who couldn’t do them." She said "Jamaica" comes from an old name for the place she is from, and "Kincaid" sounded good with "Jamaica." Her short stories appeared in The Paris Review and The New Yorker, where her 1990 novel Lucy was first published in serial form.

Kincaid’s work has been both praised and criticized because it often draws from her own life and is sometimes seen as angry. She has said that many writers use their own experiences, and calling her work autobiographical or angry is not fair criticism.

Kincaid was the 50th commencement speaker at Bard College at Simon's Rock in 2019.

Because of her writing and friendship with George W. S. Trow, a writer for The New Yorker, Kincaid met William Shawn, an editor at the magazine. Shawn was impressed with her writing and hired her as a staff writer in 1976. He also worked with her as a columnist for The New Yorker’s "Talk of the Town" section for nine years. Shawn’s guidance helped Kincaid develop her writing style. She worked for The New Yorker for 20 years but left in 1996 when editor Tina Brown chose actress Roseanne Barr to guest-edit an issue. Though the magazine’s readership grew under Brown, Kincaid criticized her for making the magazine less literary and more focused on celebrities.

Kincaid has said that when she worked for The New Yorker, people often asked her, especially women, how she got her job. She felt these questions were asked because she was a young Black woman from a poor background with no formal education or money. She said, "I was a servant. I dropped out of college. The next thing you know, I’m writing for The New Yorker. It must seem annoying to people."

Talk Stories, a collection of 77 short pieces Kincaid wrote for The New Yorker’s "Talk of the Town" column between 1974 and 1983, was published in 2001.

In 2022, Kincaid received the Paris Review Hadada Prize, the magazine’s annual lifetime achievement award.

Writing

Jamaica Kincaid's novels are based on her own life but not exactly the same. She has warned that readers should not take the personal details in her stories as facts. She said, "Everything I say is true, and everything I say is not true. You couldn't admit any of it to a court of law. It would not be good evidence." Her work often focuses more on emotions and feelings than on a clear story. Her stories often show conflicts with strong mothers and the effects of colonial and neocolonial powers. Parts of her nonfiction book A Small Place were included in a 2001 documentary called Life and Debt by Stephanie Black.

Henry Louis Gates Jr., an African-American scholar and writer, said Kincaid does not need to prove that she writes about Black experiences or women's perspectives because she assumes they are part of her work. He believes her approach helps move beyond the topic of racism to explore deeper themes about how Black people live, love, and experience life.

Kincaid's writing covers many topics, including colonialism, postcolonialism, gender, mother-daughter relationships, imperialism, education, writing, racism, class, power, death, and adolescence. In her novel See Now Then, she explores the theme of time.

Critics and scholars have mixed opinions about Kincaid's writing style. Harold Bloom said most reviews focus on her political and social themes rather than her literary skills. Some critics believe her books, such as At the Bottom of the River and The Autobiography of My Mother, use magical realism because they include cultural practices from Antigua. Kincaid, however, says her work is "magic" and "real" but not necessarily magical realism. Others describe her style as modernist because it is culturally specific and experimental. Her writing is praised for its detailed character observations, brevity, wit, and poetic quality. In her short story Girl, she lists instructions for how a girl should live, but the story carries deeper meanings. Derek Walcott said her writing captures the "temperature" of a narrator's feelings in a way that feels universal. Susan Sontag praised her work for its "emotional truthfulness" and complexity. Some say her strength comes from refusing to hide her voice. Giovanna Covi said her stories resist traditional standards and have a rhythm like music. Her writing is described as having "double vision," where one story line reflects another with symbolic meaning.

Kincaid's life experiences greatly influence her writing. Michael Arlen said it is unfair to see this as a weakness, as writers can create fictional characters based on real-life events. Kincaid worked as an au pair for Arlen, who later became a colleague at The New Yorker. The father in her book Lucy is based on him. She has said, "I would never say I wouldn't write about an experience I've had."

Peter Kurth of Salon.com called her book My Brother the most overrated book of 1997. Dwight Garner of The New York Times described See Now Then (2013) as "bipolar," "half séance, half ambush," and "the kind of lumpy exorcism that many writers would have composed and then allowed to remain unpublished." He said the book does not carry much meaning. Another New York Times review called the book "not an easy book to stomach" but noted that Kincaid's strength lies in her refusal to hide her voice. Kate Tuttle of The Boston Globe said Kincaid agreed the book is difficult but intended it to be that way. A review of Mr. Potter (2002) said the repetition in the book is hard to accept unless it is clearly meaningful. Another critic said Kincaid's precise style avoids common mistakes in writing.

In 2022, Kincaid signed a letter with 38 Harvard faculty members defending Professor John Comaroff, who had been found to have violated university policies. The letter called Comaroff "an excellent colleague, advisor, and committed university citizen" and expressed disappointment over his punishment. After students filed a lawsuit with detailed claims and Harvard did not respond, Kincaid and others who signed the letter said they wished to retract their support.