Jamaica Kincaid: A Critical Companion

With the publication of her novel Annie John in 1985, Jamaica Kincaid entered the ranks of the best novelists of her generation. Her three autobiographical novels, Annie John , Lucy , and Autobiography of My Mother , and collection of short stories, At the Bottom of the River , touch on the universal theme of coming-of-age and the female adolescent’s need to sever her ties to her mother. This angst is couched in the social landscape of post-colonial Antigua, a small Caribbean island whose legacy of racism affects Kincaid’s protagonists. Her fiction rewrites the history of the Caribbean from a West Indies perspective and this milieu colors the experiences of her characters.

Following a biographical chapter, Paravisini-Gebert traces the development of Kincaid’s craft as a writer. Each of the novels and the collection of short stories is discussed in a separate chapter that includes sections on plot, character, theme, and an alternate critical approach from which to read the novel, such as feminist. A complete primary and secondary bibliography and lists of selected reviews of Kincaid’s work complete the study.