Adapted for the stage for the first time, A Small Place Jamaica Kincaid’s searing story about Western colonial exploitation opened at the Gate Theatre on 8th November starring Nicola Alexis and Cherelle Skeete.
Jamaica Kincaid’s essays, stories and novels are evocative portrayals of family relationships and her native Antigua. Moving to New York at the age of 16 she later became a staff writer for The New Yorker magazine and her first book, At the Bottom of the River, a collection of short stories published in 1983, set a pattern for her late work, mixing lyricism and anger.
Annie John and Lucy were autobiographical in nature with an emphasis on mother-daughter relationships and A Small Place continued her depiction of Antigua and her rage at its despoliation. Kincaid’s treatment of the themes of family relationships, personhood and the taint of colonialism continued in The Autobiography of My Mother and My Brother, an account of the death of from AIDS of Kincaid’s younger brother. Her ‘Talk of the Town’ columns for The New Yorker, often chronicling Caribbean culture were collected in Talk Stories. Later novels include Among Flowers: A Walk in Himalaya and See Now Then which follows the late-life dissolution of a marriage through the eyes of the jilted wife.
