Novelist and essayist Jamaica Kincaid will give a reading at Wabash College at 8 pm. on Tuesday, Oct. 11, in Korb Classroom in the Fine Arts Center.
Considered one of America’s premier fiction writers, Kincaid is the author of At the Bottom of the River, Annie John, A Small Place, Lucy, Autobiography of My Mother, My Brother, Mr. Potter, and See Now Then. Her “highly personal, stylistic, and honest writings” are considered loosely autobiographical from her upbringing.
Praised as a “significant voice in contemporary literature,” Kincaid was born in 1949 as Elaine Potter Richardson on the island of Antigua. She lived with her stepfather, a carpenter, and her mother until 1965, when she was sent to Westchester, NY, to work as an au pair. She went on to study photography at the New York School for Social Research and attended Franconia College in New Hampshire for a year before returning to New York.
In 1973 she changed her name to Jamaica Kincaid, because her family disapproved of her writing. Her first published writings appeared in Ingenue magazine and The Village Voice. After The New Yorker's “Talk of the Town” columnist, George W.S. Trow, printed her notes on events in the city as a piece, Kincaid drew the attention of New Yorker editor William Shawn. She became a regular contributor to the magazine and a featured columnist for “Talk of the Town.”
Her reading is free and open to the public. A book signing will take place following the reading.