Try our Advanced SearchShort stories by Jamaica Kincaid
Jamaica Kincaid is a novelist and essayist. Jamaica Kincaid was born Elaine Potter Richardson in St. John's, Antigua. Kincaid was educated in the British colonial education system, as Antigua did not gain its independence from England until 1981. Although she was intelligent and tested at the top of her class, her mother removed Kincaid from school at age sixteen to help support the family when her third and last brother was born because her stepfather was ill and could not provide for the family anymore. Her mother sent her to Scarsdale, a suburb of New York City when she was only seventeen to work as an au pair. However, 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. While working as an au pair, Kincaid enrolled in evening classes at a community college. After three years, she resigned from her job to attend Franconia College in New Hampshire on a full scholarship. However, Kincaid dropped out of school after one year and moved to New York City. In New York City, she started writing for a teenage girls' magazine and changed her name to Jamaica Kincaid.
Listing 3 stories.
A Caribbean mother rants to her elementary-aged daughter about how to be a respectable girl. When the girls tries to reply, the mother continues her lecture.
A young woman sent to board with an older couple claims bodily autonomy and control over her own fate.
A young, African-Carib girl is raised by the woman who does her father's laundry after her mother dies in childbirth. Feeling a lack of love in her life, the girl seeks to understand her relationship with her distant father and dead mother.