Jamaica Kincaid

After working as an au pair, Kincaid worked as a secretary, model and backup singer in New York. In 1970, with bleached hair, she was a wild child in the city.

She was married to Allen Shawn from 1979 to 2002.

In 1985, the couple had a daughter, Annie, and four years later, they had a son, Harold.

Elaine Potter Richardson was born on May 25, 1949, in St. John’s, Antigua, an island that did not gain independence from British colonial rule until 1981.

Born to a taxi driver father named Roderick and a mother named Annie Richardson Drew, Elaine would never know her biological father. Her stepfather, David Drew, however, and her mother raised Elaine as their only child until she turned nine.

She was an intelligent student and also won a scholarship to the ‘Princess Margaret School’ which was affiliated under the British system of education.

At age nine, her young life changed with the subsequent births of her three brothers. Her mother and stepfather were too busy to dote over their daughter.

Around the time of the birth of the third son, her stepfather became ill. Annie pulled the young girl out of school to take care of him. This would cause a lasting effect on Elaine.

In 1973, Elaine adopted the pseudonym Jamaica Kincaid because her family did not approve of her writing. The same year, her interview with Gloria Steinem became the first work to be published under her pen name. She further wrote a series of article titled ‘When I was Seventeen’, which were inspired by the interview.

Her first official assignment was a series of articles for ‘Ingenue’ magazine. It was during this time that she started making acquaintances among the literary intellectuals of New York. She continued working as a freelancer for the next three years, developing contacts in the meanwhile.

She was introduced to William Shawn, who was the editor of the ‘New Yorker’ through Michael O'Donoghue, a friend who wrote a column in the magazine. Shawn hired her after she submitted a piece for the column ‘Talk of the Town’ and would eventually mentor her. In 1976, Kincaid became a regular contributor to the New Yorker. Two years later her first piece of fiction ‘Girl’, a short story, was published in the magazine.

At the New Yorker, under the tutelage of William Shawn she developed her distinct style of writing and rose from the ranks of a staff writer to a feature columnist for ‘Talk of the Town’ and eventually an editor. She ended her twenty long years of association with the magazine, in 1996; when stand-up comedian and actress Roseanne Barr was invited to guest edit an issue. It was the same year her younger brother demised, after contracting AIDS.

After leaving New Yorker she continued writing. Her novels were imaginative accounts of her experience of coming into adulthood in a foreign country and continued the narrative of her personal history, including being separated from family. In them, she also delved into colonialism and her anger toward its ramifications. She also published a collection of short stories and a collection of essays.

’At the Bottom of the River’ published in1983, was Kincaid's first collection of short stories. This collection, which featured her trademark autobiographical fiction, received critical acclaim and won ‘Morton Dauwen Zabel Award’ presented by the ‘American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters’.

Kincaid's most recent novel, ‘See Now Then’, won the ‘2013 American Book Award’.