(8# Antigua and Barbuda) Jamaica Kincaid: Why she kicks ass

• She is a novelist, gardener, andgardeningwriter, who has created her own distinct voice which differentiates her from other Carribbean writers.
• Often the themes of mother-daughter relationships, the effects of colonialism, alienation, renaming, new beginnings and walking away from the past, come into her work in myriads of ways. Her work touches beyond the realm of a feminist and afro-centric perspective, and while her prose is ‘simple’- it displays her mastery over poetic lines, tangible imagery and unique grasp on the progression of time.
• She was hired by the Editor of the New Yorker. Eventually she started writing for a column entitled “Talk of the Town.” Due to her editor’s encouragement, she began to write fiction- that was published in short instalments in the very same paper. However, they refused to publish her work ‘A small world’ due to it’s “angry themes”.
• She won the Morton Dauwen Zabel Award of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters, with ‘At the Bottom of the River’, and received the Guggenheim Fellowship in 1989. After ‘Lucy’ was published in 1990, she was given honorary degrees from Williams College and Long Island College.
• Her autobiographical ‘Annie John’ was critically acclaimed for its appeal as a coming of age story, outrage over treatment of Native Caribbean Culture and imagery of mother-daughter relationships. This lead onto ‘A small place’, which spoke of her outrage over both not having returned home in 20 years, and the utter devastation that Antigua after colonialism. This touched on the corruption that she saw in the leaders, the devastation that tourism was inflicting and exploitation of it’s people.