Talia and I have a girl crush on Jamaica Kincaid. We spent a little time with her before the Freedom to Read Foundation's Banned/Challenged Author event at Seattle Town Hall during ALA Midwinter. She completely won us over in, oh, approximately four minutes.
Kincaid joined us in Seattle to talk about her journey as a reader and a writer and the experience of having her book, LUCY, challenged in a Pennsylvania high school as "most pornographic." More on that event here.
We're excited to see that SEE NOW THEN, Kincaid's first novel in ten years, has some great press already. The New York Times ran a piece called "Never Mind the Parallels, Don’t Read It as My Life" in which Kincaid clarifies how much of her new book is autobiographical (spoiler: only some). And Publishers Weekly interviewed Kincaid in "The Age of a Mountain: PW Talks with Jamaica Kincaid" about the phrase "see now then" and her experience creating characters of all ages.
"Kincaid has created a measured, bewitching, and metaphysical fable, as well as a venomous, acidly comic, and plangent tale of love, betrayal, and loss that is at once slashingly personal and radiantly universal in its mystery, passion, and catharsis." -Booklist (starred review)
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