Jamaica Kincaid

Colonialism, Coming of Age and Preserving the Past in the Work of Kincaid

Jamaica Kincaid has earned a reputation for speaking frankly and brashly about the personal journey of self-awareness. In doing so, the author has also become a powerful voice for the oft-underrepresented experience of Caribbean Islanders in the late 20th Century. A native of Antigua, Jamaica Kincaid left in her late teens to pursue an education in the United States. This dramatic break from her past would be followed by the adoption of the pen name by which she would become famous. This transformation is critical to the present discussion because it implicates the major themes that would be recurrent in her writing and because it inclines us to consider the ways in which we constantly reinvent ourselves. In both Annie John and My Brother, Kincaid uses the very personal and transformative experiences of her protagonists...
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