:Jamaica Kincaid

Kincaid was born in St. John's on the island of Antigua, on 25 May 1949.{{cite web|url=https://scholarblogs.emory.edu/postcolonialstudies/2014/06/10/kincaid-jamaica/|title=Kincaid, Jamaica|last=Slavin|first=Molly Marie|website=Postcolonial Studies|publisher=Emory University|access-date=November 18, 2017}} She grew up in relative poverty with her mother, a literate, cultured woman and homemaker, and her stepfather, a carpenter.{{cite web|url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/arts/features/womenwriters/kincaid_life.shtml|title=Her Story|website=BBC World Service|access-date=November 18, 2017}}{{Cite web |url=http://www.ebscohost.com/ |title=EBSCOhost Online Research Databases | EBSCO |access-date=November 20, 2017 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140303062748/http://www.ebscohost.com/ |archive-date=March 3, 2014 |url-status=bot: unknown }} She was very close to her mother until her three brothers were born in quick succession, starting when Kincaid was nine years old. After her brothers' births, she resented her mother, who thereafter focused primarily on the brothers' needs. Kincaid later recalled,

Our family money remained the same, but there were more people to feed and to clothe, and so everything got sort of shortened, not only material things but emotional things. The good emotional things, I got a short end of that. But then I got more of things I didn't have, like a certain kind of cruelty and neglect.

In an interview for The New York Times, Kincaid also said: "The way I became a writer was that my mother wrote my life for me and told it to me."{{Cite news|url=https://archive.nytimes.com/www.nytimes.com/books/97/10/19/home/kincaid-annie.html|title=Paradise with Snake|last=Kenney|first=Susan|date=April 7, 1985|work=The New York Times|access-date=August 7, 2018}}

Kincaid received, and frequently excelled in, a British education growing up, as Antigua did not gain independence from the United Kingdom until 1981.{{cite web|url=https://www.encyclopedia.com/people/literature-and-arts/miscellaneous-english-literature-20th-cent-biographies/jamaica-kincaid|title=Jamaica Kincaid|website=Encyclopedia of World Biography|publisher=Encyclopedia.com|access-date=November 18, 2017}} Although she was intelligent and frequently tested at the top of her class, Kincaid's mother removed her from school at 16 to help support the family when her third and last brother was born, because her stepfather was ill and could no longer provide for the family. In 1966, when Kincaid was 17, her mother sent her to Scarsdale, a wealthy suburb of New York City, to work as an au pair.{{cite journal|last=Levintova|first=Hannah|title="Our Sassy Black Friend" Jamaica Kincaid|url=https://www.motherjones.com/media/2013/02/interview-jamaica-kincaid-see-now-then|journal=Mother Jones|issue=January/February 2013|access-date=June 25, 2013}} After this move, Kincaid refused to send money home; "she left no forwarding address and was cut off from her family until her return to Antigua 20 years later".

In 1979, Kincaid married the composer and Bennington College professor Allen Shawn, son of longtime The New Yorker editor William Shawn and brother of actor Wallace Shawn. The couple divorced in 2002. They have two children: a son, Harold, a graduate of Northeastern University, a music producer/songwriter who is the founder of Levelsoundz; and a daughter, Annie, who graduated from Harvard and now works in marketing. Kincaid is president of the official Levelsoundz Fan Club.

Kincaid is a keen gardener who has written extensively on the subject.

She converted to Judaism in 2005.{{cite web|url=http://www.ujc.org/page.aspx?id=26506|title=Black Jews: A Minority Within a Minority|author=Halper, Donna|publisher=United Jewish Communities|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090228091356/http://www.ujc.org/page.aspx?id=26506|archive-date=February 28, 2009|url-status=dead|access-date=August 3, 2010|df=mdy-all}}

While working as an au pair, Kincaid enrolled in evening classes at a community college.Benson, Kristin M., and Hagseth, Cayce. (2001). "Jamaica Kincaid." Voices from the Gaps. University of Minnesota Digital Conservancy. Retrieved August 7, 2018. After three years, she resigned from her job to attend Franconia College in New Hampshire on a full scholarship. She dropped out after a year and returned to New York, where she started writing for the teenage girls' magazine Ingénue, The Village Voice, and Ms. magazine.{{cite book|title=Daughters of Africa|chapter=Jamaica Kincaid|first=Margaret|last=Busby|date=1992|page=772|publisher=Jonathan Cape|location=London}}{{cite journal|url=https://www.caribbean-beat.com/issue-67/looking-back-anger-jamaica-kincaid#axzz6f0UpDy00|title=Jamaica Kincaid: Looking Back In Anger — A Jamaica Kincaid chronology|first= Jeremy|last= Taylor |journal=Caribbean Beat|issue=67 |date=May–June 2004|access-date=27 November 2020}} She changed her name to Jamaica Kincaid in 1973, when her writing was first published.{{cite web|url=http://www.eng.fju.edu.tw/worldlit/caribbean/jam~1.htm|title=Jamaica Kincaid|website=Department of English Language and Literature|publisher=Fu Jen Catholic University|access-date=November 18, 2017}} She described this name change as "a way for [her] to do things without being the same person who couldn't do them — the same person who had all these weights".{{cite journal|last=Garis|first=Leslie|date=October 7, 1990|title=Through West Indian Eyes|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1990/10/07/magazine/through-west-indian-eyes.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm|journal=New York Times Magazine|access-date=June 18, 2013}} Kincaid explained that "Jamaica" is an English corruption of what Columbus called Xaymaca, the part of the world that she comes from, and "Kincaid" appeared to go well with "Jamaica".{{cite web|last = Sander|first = R.|title = Review of Diane Simmons, Jamaica Kincaid|url =http://www.thecaribbeanwriter.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=612&catid=13:volume10&Itemid=2§ion=volume|work = Caribbean Writer: the Literary Gem of the Caribbean|publisher = University of the Virgin Islands|access-date = June 25, 2013}} Her short fiction appeared in The Paris Review, and in The New Yorker, where her 1990 novel Lucy was originally serialized.{{cite web|url=http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=2502|title=Jamaica Kincaid|last=Ippolito|first=Emilia|date=July 7, 2001|website=The Literary Encyclopedia|access-date=November 18, 2017}}

Kincaid's work has been both praised and criticized for its subject matter because it largely draws upon her own life and because her tone is often perceived as angry. Kincaid counters that many writers draw upon personal experience, so to describe her writing as autobiographical and angry is not valid criticism.{{cite web|url=http://www.salon.com/2013/05/05/jamaica_kincaid_people_say_im_angry_because_im_black_and_im_a_woman_partner/|title=Jamaica Kincaid: People say I'm angry because I'm black and I'm a woman|last=Loh|first=Alyssa|date=May 5, 2013|website=Salon|access-date=November 18, 2017}}

Kincaid was the 50th commencement speaker at Bard College at Simon's Rock in 2019.{{Cite web|url=https://simons-rock.edu/news/kincaid-commencement.php|title=Jamaica Kincaid Named Simon's Rock Commencement Speaker {{!}} Bard College at Simon's Rock|website=simons-rock.edu|language=en|access-date=2019-03-09}}

As a result of her budding writing career and friendship with George W. S. Trow, who wrote many pieces for The New Yorker column "The Talk of the Town",{{Cite book|url=https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/225154/island-people-by-joshua-jelly-schapiro/9780385349765/|title=The View from Jamaica Kincaid's Antigua|last=Jelly-Schapiro|first=Joshua|publisher=Penguin Random House|year=2016|location=New York|language=en-US|chapter=[Excerpt]|quote=Jamaica Kincaid's first published work, in the magazine where she made her name… appeared in the September 30, 1974, issue of The New Yorker. It was a brief notice about the annual West Indian Labor Day Carnival in Brooklyn, in the magazine's Talk of the Town section. It ran without a byline, as was customary for "Talk" pieces at the time, and employing the royal 'we', also common to these pieces then.|chapter-url=https://lithub.com/the-view-from-jamaica-kincaids-antigua/}} Kincaid became acquainted with New Yorker editor William Shawn, who was impressed with her writing. He employed her as a staff writer in 1976 and eventually as a featured columnist for Talk of the Town for nine years. Shawn's tutelage legitimized Kincaid as a writer and proved pivotal to her development of voice. In all, she was a staff writer for The New Yorker for 20 years.{{Cite news|url=https://www.motherjones.com/media/2013/02/interview-jamaica-kincaid-see-now-then/|title='Our Sassy Black Friend' Jamaica Kincaid|last=Levintova|first=Hannah|work=Mother Jones|access-date=June 25, 2013|issue=January/February 2013}} She resigned from The New Yorker in 1996 when then editor Tina Brown chose actress Roseanne Barr to guest-edit an issue as an original feminist voice. Though circulation rose under Brown, Kincaid was critical of Brown's direction in making the magazine less literary and more celebrity-oriented.

Kincaid recalls that when she was a writer for The New Yorker, she would often be questioned, particularly by women, on how she was able to obtain her position. Kincaid felt that these questions were posed because she was a young black woman "from nowhere… I have no credentials. I have no money. I literally come from a poor place. I was a servant. I dropped out of college. The next thing you know I'm writing for The New Yorker, I have this sort of life, and it must seem annoying to people."

Talk Stories was later published in 2001 as a collection of "77 short pieces Kincaid wrote for The New Yorker's 'Talk of the Town' column between 1974 and 1983".{{cite web|url=http://www.januarymagazine.com/nonfiction/talkkincaid.html|title=Talk Jamaica|last=Powers|first=Sienna|date=February 2001|website=January Magazine|access-date=November 18, 2017}}

In December 2021, Kincaid was announced as the recipient of the 2022 Paris Review Hadada Prize, the magazine's annual lifetime achievement award.{{cite magazine|url=https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2021/12/02/jamaica-kincaid-will-receive-our-2022-hadada-award/?mc_cid=1a53730790&mc_eid=d6662e4201|title=Jamaica Kincaid Will Receive Our 2022 Hadada Award|magazine=The Paris Review|date=December 2, 2021|access-date=December 6, 2021}}

Her novels are loosely autobiographical, though Kincaid has warned against interpreting their autobiographical elements too literally: "Everything I say is true, and everything I say is not true. You couldn't admit any of it to a court of law. It would not be good evidence."{{Cite web|url=https://www.missourireview.com/article/interview-with-jamaica-kincaid/|title=Interview with Jamaica Kincaid|last1=Kincaid|first1=Jamaica|last2=Bonetti|first2=Kay|date=June 1, 2002|website=The Missouri Review|publisher=University of Missouri College of Arts and Science|access-date=August 7, 2018}} Her work often prioritizes "impressions and feelings over plot development" and features conflict with both a strong maternal figure and colonial and neocolonial influences.Jamaica Kincaid. (n.d.). Columbia Guide to Contemporary African American Fiction. Literary Resource Center. Retrieved June 2014 Excerpts from her non-fiction book A Small Place were used as part of the narrative for Stephanie Black's 2001 documentary, Life and Debt.{{cite web|title = About the film|url=http://www.lifeanddebt.org/about.html|access-date = May 17, 2013|website = Life and Debt}}

One of Kincaid's contributions according to Henry Louis Gates, Jr, African-American literary critic, scholar, writer, and public intellectual, is that:

{{blockquote|She never feels the necessity of claiming the existence of a black world or a female sensibility. She assumes them both. I think it's a distinct departure that she's making, and I think that more and more black American writers will assume their world the way that she does. So that we can get beyond the large theme of racism and get to the deeper themes of how black people love and cry and live and die. Which, after all, is what art is all about.}}

Kincaid's writing explores such themes as colonialism and colonial legacy, postcolonialism and neo-colonialism, gender and sexuality, renaming, mother-daughter relationships, British and American imperialism, colonial education, writing, racism, class, power, death, and adolescence. In her most recent novel, See Now Then, Kincaid also first explores the theme of time.

Kincaid's style has created disagreement among critics and scholars, and as Harold Bloom explains: "Most of the published criticism of Jamaica Kincaid has stressed her political and social concerns, somewhat at the expense of her literary qualities."{{Cite book|url=https://archive.org/details/jamaicakincaidbl00haro_0|title=Jamaica Kincaid|publisher=Chelsea House|year=1998|isbn=0791047814|editor-last=Bloom|editor-first=Harold|location=Philadelphia|lccn=98014078|oclc=38580188|url-access=registration}} As works such as At the Bottom of the River and The Autobiography of My Mother use Antiguan cultural practices, some critics say these works employ magical realism. "The author claims, however, that [her work] is 'magic' and 'real,' but not necessarily [works] of 'magical realism'." Other critics claim that her style is "modernist" because much of her fiction is "culturally specific and experimental".Frederick, R. D. (2000). "Jamaica Kincaid", Columbia Companion to the Twentieth-Century American, pp. 314–319. Retrieved October 21, 2015. It has also been praised for its keen observation of character, curtness, wit, and lyrical quality. Her short story "Girl" is essentially a list of instructions on how a girl should live and act, but the messages are much larger than the literal list of suggestions. Derek Walcott, 1992 Nobel laureate, said of Kincaid's writing: "As she writes a sentence, psychologically, its temperature is that it heads toward its own contradiction. It's as if the sentence is discovering itself, discovering how it feels. And that is astonishing, because it's one thing to be able to write a good declarative sentence; it's another thing to catch the temperature of the narrator, the narrator's feeling. And that's universal, and not provincial in any way". Susan Sontag has also commended Kincaid's writing for its "emotional truthfulness," poignancy, and complexity. Her writing has been described as "fearless" and her "force and originality lie in her refusal to curb her tongue".{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/24/books/review/see-now-then-by-jamaica-kincaid.html|title=Home Truths: 'See Now Then,' by Jamaica Kincaid|last=Eberstadt|first=Fernanda|date=February 22, 2013|work=The New York Times|access-date=June 8, 2018|issn=0362-4331}} Giovanna Covi describes her unique writing: "The tremendous strength of Kincaid's stories lies in their capacity to resist all canons. They move at the beat of a drum and the rhythm of jazz…" She is described as writing with a "double vision" meaning that one line of plot mirrors another, providing the reader with rich symbolism that enhances the possibilities of interpretation.

Kincaid's writing is largely influenced by her life circumstances even though she discourages readers from taking her fiction literally. To do so, according to the writer Michael Arlen, is to be "disrespectful of a fiction writer's ability to create fictional characters". Kincaid worked for Arlen, who would become a colleague at The New Yorker, as an au pair and is the figure whom the father in Lucy is based on. Despite her caution to readers, Kincaid has also said: "I would never say I wouldn't write about an experience I've had."

The reception of Kincaid's work has been mixed. Her writing stresses deep social and even political commentary, as Harold Bloom cites as a reason why the "literary qualities" of her work tend to be less of a focus for critics. Writing for Salon.com, Peter Kurth called Kincaid's work My Brother the most overrated book of 1997.{{Cite web|title = The worst books of 1997|url = http://www.salon.com/1997/12/24/24worst/|date=December 25, 1997|access-date = 2015-11-08|first = Dwight|last = Garner|work=Salon}} Reviewing her latest novel, See Now Then (2013), in The New York Times, Dwight Garner called it "bipolar", "half séance, half ambush", and "the kind of lumpy exorcism that many writers would have composed and then allowed to remain unpublished. It picks up no moral weight as it rolls along. It asks little of us, and gives little in return."{{Cite news|title = 'See Now Then,' Jamaica Kincaid's New Novel|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/13/books/see-now-then-jamaica-kincaids-new-novel.html|newspaper = The New York Times|date = 2013-02-12|access-date = 2015-11-08|issn = 0362-4331|first = Dwight|last = Garner}} Another New York Times review describes it as "not an easy book to stomach" but goes on to explain, "Kincaid's force and originality lie in her refusal to curb her tongue, in an insistence on home truths that spare herself least of all." Kate Tuttle addresses this in an article for The Boston Globe: "Kincaid allowed that critics are correct to point out the book's complexity. "The one thing the book is," she said, "is difficult, and I meant it to be."{{Cite news|url=https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/books/2013/11/02/jamaica-kincaid-writing-and-critics/sDZyZ6xPKoIQZDAy4tmSPO/story.html|title=Jamaica Kincaid on Writing and Critics|last=Tuttle|first=Kate|date=November 2, 2013|work=The Boston Globe|access-date=June 9, 2018|archive-date=June 12, 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180612162145/https://www.bostonglobe.com/arts/books/2013/11/02/jamaica-kincaid-writing-and-critics/sDZyZ6xPKoIQZDAy4tmSPO/story.html|url-status=dead}} Some critics have been harsh, such as one review for Mr Potter (2002) that reads: "It wouldn't be so hard if the repetition weren't coupled, here and everywhere it occurs, with a stern rebuff to any idea that it might be meaningful."{{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/12/books/nowhere-man.html|title=Nowhere Man|last=Harrison|first=Sophie|date=May 12, 2002|work=The New York Times|access-date=August 7, 2018}} On the other hand, there has been much praise for her writing, for instance: "The superb precision of Kincaid's style makes it a paradigm of how to avoid lots of novelistic pitfalls."{{Cite web|url=https://www.theguardian.com/books/2006/jul/01/featuresreviews.guardianreview31|title=Jamaica Kincaid: Annie John|last=Smiley|first=Jane|date=2006-07-01|website=the Guardian|language=en|access-date=2018-06-09}}

In February 2022, Kincaid was one of 38 Harvard faculty members to sign a letter to The Harvard Crimson defending Professor John Comaroff, who had been found to have violated the university's sexual and professional conduct policies. The letter defended Comaroff as "an excellent colleague, advisor and committed university citizen" and expressed dismay over his being sanctioned by the university.{{cite web|url=https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2022/2/4/comaroff-sanctions-open-letter/ |title=38 Harvard Faculty Sign Open Letter Questioning Results of Misconduct Investigations into Prof. John Comaroff |access-date=2022-02-08}} After students filed a lawsuit with detailed allegations of Comaroff's actions and the university's failure to respond, Kincaid was one of several signatories to say that she wished to retract her signature.{{cite web|url=https://www.bostonglobe.com/2022/02/08/metro/3-graduate-students-file-sexual-harassment-suit-against-prominent-harvard-anthropology-professor/ |title=3 graduate students file sexual harassment suit against prominent Harvard anthropology professor |website=The Boston Globe |access-date=2022-02-08}}

{{Incomplete list|date=November 2023}}

• Annie John (1985)
• Lucy (1990)
• The Autobiography of My Mother (1996)
• Mr Potter (2002)
• See Now Then (2013){{Cite news|url=https://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/05/books/jamaica-kincaid-isnt-writing-about-her-life-she-says.html|title=Jamaica Kincaid Isn't Writing About Her Life, She Says|last=Lee|first=Felicia R.|date=February 4, 2013|work=The New York Times|access-date=August 7, 2018}}

;Collections

• At the Bottom of the River (1983)

;StoriesShort stories unless otherwise noted.

• "Biography of a Dress" (1992), Grand Street 11: 92–100{{Cite web|url=https://www.shortstoryproject.com/biography-of-a-dress/|title=Biography of a Dress|last=Kincaid|first=Jamaica|website=Short Story Project|access-date=March 15, 2018}}
• "Song of Roland" (1993), The New Yorker 69: 94–98
• "Xuela" (1994), The New Yorker, 70: 82–92

• "Antigua Crossings: A Deep and Blue Passage on the Caribbean Sea" (1978), Rolling Stone: 48–50.
• "Figures in the Distance" (1983)
• A Small Place (1988)
• "On Seeing England for the First Time" (1991), Transition Magazine 51: 32–40
• "Out of Kenya" (1991), The New York Times: A15, A19, with Ellen Pall
• "Flowers of Evil: In the Garden" (1992), The New Yorker 68: 154–159
• "A Fire by Ice" (1993), The New Yorker 69: 64–67
• "Just Reading: In the Garden" (1993), The New Yorker 69: 51–55
• "Alien Soil: In the Garden" (1993), The New Yorker 69: 47–52
• "This Other Eden" (1993), The New Yorker 69: 69–73
• "The Season Past: In the Garden" (1994), The New Yorker 70: 57–61
• "In Roseau" (1995), The New Yorker 71: 92–99.
• "In History" (1997), The Colors of Nature
• My Brother (1997)
• My Favorite Plant: Writers and Gardeners on the Plants they Love (1998), Editor
• Talk Stories (2001)
• My Garden (Book) (2001)
• Among Flowers: A Walk in the Himalayas (2005)
• {{cite journal |date=September 7, 2020 |title=A heap of disturbance |department=In the Garden |journal=The New Yorker |volume=96 |issue=26 |pages=24–26 |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2020/09/07/the-disturbances-of-the-garden }}Online version is titled "The disturbances of the garden".
• {{cite journal |date=August 29, 2022 |title=Time with Pryor |department=The Talk of the Town. January 12, 1976 |journal=The New Yorker |volume=98 |issue=26 |pages=16–17 |url=https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/08/29/richard-pryor-i-was-born-under-the-sign-of-funny }}Originally published in the January 12, 1976 issue.Online version is titled "Richard Pryor: 'I was born under the sign of funny'".

• Annie, Gwen, Lilly, Pam, and Tulip (1986)
• An Encyclopedia of Gardening for Colored Children, (2024){{cite web | url=https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2024/07/visiting-jamaica-kincaids-vermont-garden/ | title=Visiting Jamaica Kincaid's Vermont garden | date=July 29, 2024 }}

———————

;Notes

{{reflist|40em|group=lower-alpha}}

• Caribbean literature

• Selwyn Cudjoe, "Jamaica Kincaid and the Modernist Project: An Interview," Callaloo, 12 (Spring 1989): 396–411; reprinted in Caribbean Women Writers: Essays from the First International Conference, ed. Cudjoe (Wellesley, Mass.: Calaloux, 1990): 215–231.
• Leslie Garis, "Through West Indian Eyes," New York Times Magazine (October 7, 1990): 42.
• Donna Perry, "An Interview with Jamaica Kincaid," in Reading Black, Reading Feminist: A Critical Anthology, edited by Henry Louis Gates Jr. (New York: Meridian, 1990): 492–510.
• Kay Bonetti, "An Interview with Jamaica Kincaid," Missouri Review, 15, No. 2 (1992): 124–142.
• Allan Vorda, "I Come from a Place That's Very Unreal: An Interview with Jamaica Kincaid," in Face to Face: Interviews with Contemporary Novelists, ed. Vorda (Houston: Rice University Press, 1993): 77–105.
• Moira Ferguson, "A Lot of Memory: An Interview with Jamaica Kincaid," Kenyon Review, 16 (Winter 1994): 163–188.

• 1984: Morton Dauwen Zabel Award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters for At the Bottom of the River
• 1984: Shortlisted for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction for At the Bottom of the River.{{cite web|url=http://literature.britishcouncil.org/jamaica-kincaid|title=Jamaica Kincaid|work=Literature|publisher=British Council|access-date=June 25, 2013}}
• 1985: Guggenheim Award for Fiction{{cite web|url=http://www.gf.org/fellows/7847-jamaica-kincaid|title=Jamaica Kincaid|work=Fellowships to Assist Research and Artistic Creation|publisher=John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130604041122/http://www.gf.org/fellows/7847-jamaica-kincaid|archive-date=June 4, 2013|url-status=dead|access-date=June 14, 2013|df=mdy-all}}
• 1985: Finalist for the International Ritz Paris Hemingway Award for Annie John
• 1992: Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Colgate University
• 1997: Shortlisted for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction for The Autobiography of My Mother
• 1997: Anisfield-Wolf Book Award for The Autobiography of My Mother{{Cite news|url=https://www.anisfield-wolf.org/books/the-autobiography-of-my-mother/|title=The Autobiography of My Mother|last=Stahl|first=Eva Marie|work=Anisfield-Wolf Book Awards|access-date=June 7, 2018|publisher=The Cleveland Foundation|language=en-US}}
• 1999: Lannan Literary Award for Fiction
• 2000: Prix Femina étranger for My Brother{{Cite web|url=http://writing.upenn.edu/wh/people/fellows/kincaid.html|title=Jamaica Kincaid|date=March 19, 2007|website=The Kelly Writers House, The Center for Programs in Contemporary Writing|publisher=University of Pennsylvania|language=en|access-date=June 7, 2018}}
• 2004: American Academy of Arts and Letters{{cite web|url=http://now.tufts.edu/commencement-2011/jamaica-kincaid|title=Jamaica Kincaid|work=Tufts Now|publisher=Tufts University|access-date=June 14, 2013|archive-date=June 15, 2013|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130615191526/http://now.tufts.edu/commencement-2011/jamaica-kincaid|url-status=dead}}
• 2009: American Academy of Arts and Sciences
• 2010: Center for Fiction's Clifton Fadiman Medal for Annie John{{cite web|url=http://www.booktrade.info/index.php/showarticle/26488|title=Book Trade Announcements - Jamaica Kincaid Winner Of Center For Fiction's Clifton Fadiman Award|website=Booktrade.info|access-date=November 18, 2017|archive-date=December 23, 2016|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161223060754/http://www.booktrade.info/index.php/showarticle/26488|url-status=dead}}
• 2011: Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Tufts University
• 2014: Before Columbus Foundation American Book Award for See Now Then{{cite web|url=http://www.beforecolumbusfoundation.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/08/ABA2014PR.pdf|title=Winners of the Thirty-Fifth Annual American Book Awards|date=August 18, 2014|website=Before Columbus Foundation|access-date=November 18, 2017}}
• 2015: Honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Brandeis University
• Lila Wallace-Reader's Digest AwardCassidy, Thomas. "Jamaica Kincaid." Critical Survey of Long Fiction. Literary Resource Center. Web.
• 2017: Winner of the Dan David Prize in Literature{{cite web|url=https://www.dandavidprize.org/laureates/2017/present-literature/jamaica-kincaid|title=Jamaica Kincaid|website=Dan David Prize|date=2017|access-date=November 27, 2020}}
• 2021: Royal Society of Literature International Writer{{cite web|url=https://rsliterature.org/inaugural-rsl-international-writers-announced/|title=Inaugural RSL International Writers Announced|website=Royal Society of Literature|date= November 30, 2021|access-date= December 3, 2023}}
• 2021: Langston Hughes Medal
• 2022: The Paris Review Hadada prize for lifetime achievement

{{Reflist}}

• Jamaica Kincaid: A Bibliography of Dissertations and Theses, {{ISBN|978-1-4536-7749-0}}.

• J. Kincaid and B. Buckner, [https://www.jstor.org/stable/27654824 "Singular Beast: A Conversation with Jamaica Kincaid"], Callaloo, vol. 31, no. 2, 2008.
• A. Vorda and J. Kincaid, [https://www.jstor.org/stable/20134646 "An Interview with Jamaica Kincaid"], Mississippi Review, vol. 24, no. 3, 1996.
• F. Smith. [https://www.jstor.org/stable/3820824 "Review of 'Making Men: Gender, Literary Authority, and Women's Writing in Caribbean Narrative' by Belinda Edmondson"], Research in African Literatures, vol. 32, no. 4, 2001.

{{Wikiquote|Jamaica Kincaid}}

• [http://voices.cla.umn.edu/artistpages/kincaidJamaica.php Jamaica Kincaid], Voices from the Gaps, University of Minnesota
• [http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=2502 Literary Encyclopedia biography]
• {{usurped|1=[https://archive.today/20130616000308/http://mantlethought.org/content/pen-2013-masterclass-jamaica-kincaid "PEN 2013 Master/Class with Jamaica Kincaid and Ru Freeman"]}}, The Manle, May 3, 2013
• [http://postcolonialstudies.emory.edu/jamaica-kincaid/ Postcolonial Studies, Emory University: Jamaica Kincaid]
• [http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/arts/features/womenwriters/kincaid_life.shtml Jamaica Kincaid], BBC World Service
• [http://core.ecu.edu/engl/deenas/caribbean/kincaid.htm Writers of the Caribbean, East Carolina University: Jamaica Kincaid] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170608023123/http://core.ecu.edu/engl/deenas/caribbean/kincaid.htm |date=June 8, 2017 }}
• The [https://hollisarchives.lib.harvard.edu/repositories/24/resources/7077/collection_organization Jamaica Kincaid Papers] are held at Houghton Library, Harvard College Library.
• [https://jwa.org/encyclopedia/article/kincaid-jamaica Jewish Women's Archive page]

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Kincaid, Jamaica}}

Category:1949 births

Category:Living people

Category:20th-century American non-fiction writers

Category:20th-century American novelists

Category:20th-century American women writers

Category:21st-century American non-fiction writers

Category:21st-century American novelists

Category:21st-century American women writers

Category:African-American Jews

Category:African-American novelists

Category:American Book Award winners

Category:American garden writers

Category:American women academics

Category:American women non-fiction writers

Category:American women novelists

Category:Antigua and Barbuda emigrants to the United States

Category:Antigua and Barbuda women writers

Category:Antigua and Barbuda writers

Category:Claremont McKenna College faculty

Category:21st-century converts to Judaism

Category:Franconia College alumni

Category:Harper's Magazine people

Category:Harvard University staff

Category:Jewish American novelists

Category:Members of the American Academy of Arts and Letters

Category:The New Yorker people

Category:Novelists from New York (state)

Category:Novelists from Vermont

Category:PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction winners

Category:People from Bennington, Vermont

Category:People from St. John's, Antigua and Barbuda

Category:Prix Femina Étranger winners

Category:Wesleyan University people

Category:Writers from New York City

Category:African-American women musicians

Category:20th-century African-American women writers

Category:20th-century African-American writers

Category:21st-century African-American women

Category:21st-century American Jews

Category:Caribbean literature

Category:African-American women novelists