Author

Jamaica Kincaid was interviewed by Kay Bonetti for the American Audio Prose Library in April of 1991 in Bennington, Vermont, where she lives with her husband, composer Allen Shawn, and their two children.

Jamaica Kincaid was born Elaine Potter Richarson in 1949 in St. John’s Antigua, West Indies, the daughter of a cabinetmaker. At the age of 17, she left Antigua for New York, to work as an au pair. She shortly thereafter struck out on her own, eventually finding her way onto the staff of the New Yorker as a regular contributor to “The Talk of the Town” through her association with the writer George Trow, experience which she says is absolutely where she learned to write. Kincaid is the author of four books: At the Bottom of the River, Annie John, Lucy, and A Small Place, a book-length essay about the history and politics of Antigua. Her awards include the Morton Dauwen Zabel Award from the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters for At the Bottom of the River. Annie John was one of three finalists for the 1985 International Ritz Paris Hemingway Award.