Jamaica Kincaid

Emilia Ippolito (Independent Scholar - Europe)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 4.1.1: Anglophone Writing and Culture of Central America and the Caribbean.
Vol. editors: Ronald Cummings (McMaster University), Nicole Kennedy (University of Newcastle), Delphine Munos (Université de Liège), Melanie Otto (Trinity College Dublin), Jak Peake (University of Essex), Abigail Ward (University of Nottingham)

Dates

Born 25 May 1949
Activity 1983-ongoing

Places

Born in Antigua
Active in United States

Activities

Primary

Novelist
Story-writer

Resources

Jamaica Kincaid was born in Antigua, a small island in the West Indies, in 1949. Jamaica never met her biological father and her mother soon remarried. After attending primary school during the time of the British colonisation, Jamaica left the island and migrated to New York. She first worked as an au-pair, then went through several different working experiences, eventually becoming a staff writer for The New Yorker. Her stories have appeared in the Paris Review, Rolling Stone and The New Yorker. Her first book, At the Bottom of the River (1983), was awarded the Morton Dauwen Zabel Award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and was nominated for the PEN/Faulkner Award. Her most recent novel, My Brother (1997), won the Prix Femina Etranger (2000). Biographical details about this talented writer are scarce...

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1973 words

Citation: Ippolito, Emilia. "Jamaica Kincaid". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 07 July 2001 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=2502, accessed 05 December 2025.]