Jamaica Kincaid, At the Bottom of the River

Melanie Otto (Trinity College Dublin)

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

Dates

First circulation or publication 1984

Places

Antigua (Country of Origin)
United States (Publication/ performance)

Genres and Modes

Poetry (any)
Prose Fiction Narrative

Resources

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At the Bottom of the River

(1984), Jamaica Kincaid’s first published book, is a slim collection of prose pieces, many of which developed out of contributions to

The New Yorker

. Difficult to classify in terms of genre, the texts collected in this volume are closer to prose poems than narrative prose and record states of consciousness rather than develop plots.

At the Bottom of the River

contains the seeds of much of Kincaid’s subsequent work, so that a reading of this text greatly adds to an understanding especially of the novels that immediately follow this collection:

Annie John

(1985),

Lucy

(1990), and

The Autobiography of My Mother

(1996).

Even though the texts in At the Bottom of the River appear unconnected and can each be read on its own, on closer inspection the collection does

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2675 words

Citation: Otto, Melanie. "At the Bottom of the River". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 05 October 2012 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=32319, accessed 25 April 2024.]

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