Jamaica Kincaid’s brief if explosive book,

comes from a long line of splenetic travel writers, a close cousin to Tobias Smollett’s

(1766),

and, more obviously, the Caribbean critique of V.S. Naipaul’s

(1962). Yet even among these, Kincaid stands alone through her audacious use of second-person and the fearlessness of her prose, which takes no prisoners in its efforts to show tourists the reality behind the resort. Part history lesson, and part polemic, the book departs from travel writing tradition by addressing the reader directly, creating an intimate, if often claustrophobic effect: “You disembark from your plane. You go through customs” (4). The book has understandably alienated many writers and politicians…

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Citation: Grasso, Joshua. "A Small Place". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 18 July 2023 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=6978, accessed 20 April 2024.]

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