Jamaica Kincaid Biography and latest books by Jamaica Kincaid

“I would be lost without the feeling of antagonism that people have towards me. I write out of defiance.”
— Jamaica Kincaid at the University of Minnesota

Jamaica Kincaid was born on May 25, 1949, as Elaine Cynthia Potter Richardson. She is a novelist and gardening writer.

Kincaid\'s short fiction has appeared in The Paris Review and The New Yorker. Her first book, At the Bottom of the River (1983), was nominated for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction.

Her novels are semi autobiographical, though Kincaid has maintained that interpreting the autobiographical elements in the novels is not apt. "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 is known to give priority to impressions and feelings over plot development. Most books have protagonists conflicting with a strong maternal figure.

Her writing is born from a piercing emotion as she identifies herself with a "partially remembered, partially dreamed reality". Thematically, the books speak of issues of race, gender, colonialism, adolescent angst, loss, and tenuous mother-daughter relationships.

Kincaid has a son and a daughter with her ex-husband, the composer Allen Shawn.