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.

List of contents

Series Foreword by Kathleen Gregory Klein
The Life of Jamaica Kincaid
From Elaine Potter Richardson to Jamaica Kincaid
At the Bottom of the River (1983)
Annie John (1985)
Lucy (1990)
The Autobiography of My Mother (1997)
Bibliography
Index

About the author

LIZABETH PARAVISINI-GEBERT is Professor of Hispanic and African Studies at Vassar College. She is the author of Phyllis Shand Allfrey: A Caribbean Life (1996) and co-author of Caribbean Women Novelists (Greenwood, 1993).

Product details

• Authors: Lizabeth Paravisini-Gebert, Paravisini-Gebert Lizabeth
• Publisher: Bloomsbury
• Languages: English
• Age Recommendation: ages 7 to 17
• Product format: Hardback
• Released: 30.09.1999
• EAN: 9780313302954
• ISBN: 978-0-313-30295-4
• No. of pages: 200
• Weight: 425 g
• Series: Critical Companions to Popular Contemporary Writers
• Subjects: Fiction > Poetry, drama; English, LITERARY CRITICISM / American / General, LITERARY CRITICISM / Modern / 20th Century, The arts, YOUNG ADULT NONFICTION / Literary Criticism & Collections, American English, Literary studies: from c 1900 -, Literary studies: fiction, novelists & prose writers, Literary studies: fiction, novelists and prose writers, Literary studies: c 1900 to c 2000, Educational: English Literature, Educational: First / native language: Literature studies, LITERARY CRITICISM / Novel as Form