Jamaica Kincaid: Literary "Badass"

According to the Huffington Post's special section entitled Black Voices, Jamaica Kincaid is a "badass." Well, this is not news. 

photo from Huffington Post/Black Voices

However, Joseph Erbentraut has discovered the "Twelve Reasons Why" Kincaid continues to impress a new generation of readers, which can be read in full here. 

"Jamaica Kincaid is simply not one to mince words. When she speaks, the revered 65-year-old Antiguan-American novelist does so deliberately -- and she's not afraid to interrupt a question when she sees it fit.

Kincaid, who got her start at the New Yorker during the magazine's William Shawn era in the '70s, has produced work that has earned her an enviable list of awards, including an American Book Award for her latest novel, 2013's See Now Then.

One gets the impression Kincaid is afraid of nothing -- something that comes across in her writing, as well. Her work, at times, has been criticized for being "angry," a criticism she's rightfully dismissed as invalid, saying her work is only labeled that because she is black and a woman.

Based on an interview with The Huffington Post, here are just some of the many qualities that make Kincaid -- and her work -- so incredible.'"

Born Elaine Potter in St. John's Antigua, to a homemaker and carpenter, Jamaica Kincaid was the oldest child of four children and the only daughter. Having had her mother to herself for the first nine years of her life, Kincaid reportedly felt 'abandoned' by her mother by the time her three brothers came along (1). The author was educated in the British Colonial system, Antigua having remained a British colony until 1981. According to one source, Kincaid's traditional parents forbade her to pursue a career in writing--her chosen vocation, and at the age of seventeen, she was sent to the U.S. to work as an au pair. It was at this time in her life that she began to write professionally. William Shawn of the New Yorker hired her as a staff writer in 1976. She would leave the New Yorker in 1996, when the magazine became less literary and more focused on celebrities. 

Though critics observe that Kincaid's writing has been labeled "angry," Kincaid herself regards these observations as "invalid" along with allegations that a writer's work is necessarily autobiographical. But, a topic that does recur within her work includes post-colonial female identity: the experience of growing up in the islands still under British rule, and the experiential effects of post-colonial trauma. 

In the video below, Kincaid reads from her short narrative "Girl," a piece that reflects the inner thoughts and experience of a young girl growing up in Antigua.