Publication Order of Standalone Novels
| Annie John | 1985 |
| Lucy | 1990 |
| The Autobiography of My Mother | 1996 |
| Mr. Potter | 2002 |
| See Now Then | 2013 |
Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas
| Annie, Gwen, Lilly, Pam and Tulip | 1986 |
Publication Order of Short Story Collections
| At the Bottom of the River | 1983 |
Publication Order of Children’s Books
| Party: A Mystery | 2019 |
| An Encyclopedia of Gardening for Colored Children | 2024 |
Publication Order of Non-Fiction Books
| A Small Place | 1988 |
| My Brother | 1997 |
| My Garden (Book) | 1999 |
| Talk Stories | 2001 |
| Among Flowers: A Walk in the Himalaya | 2005 |
| Putting Myself Together: Writing 1974- | 2025 |
About Jamaica Kincaid
Jamaica Kincaid (born 1949) is an Antiguan-American novelist and essayist whose loosely autobiographical fiction draws on her childhood in Antigua and her later life in the United States. Her books include the novels “Annie John”, “Lucy” and “The Autobiography of My Mother” and the book-length essay “A Small Place”.
She was born Elaine Cynthia Potter Richardson in St. John’s, Antigua, on 25 May 1949, and grew up in relative poverty with her mother and her stepfather, a carpenter. Her mother took her out of school to help support the family and in 1966 sent her to Scarsdale, New York, to work as an au pair. She later studied at Franconia College in New Hampshire on a scholarship, then began writing for magazines in New York, including The Village Voice and Ms. She adopted the name Jamaica Kincaid in 1973.
William Shawn, editor of The New Yorker, hired her as a staff writer in 1976. She contributed to the “Talk of the Town” column, stayed with the magazine for 20 years and resigned in 1996. Those early pieces were later gathered in “Talk Stories” (2001). Her first book, “At the Bottom of the River” (1983), a collection of ten linked stories, won the Morton Dauwen Zabel Award of the American Academy of Arts and Letters.
The novels followed: “Annie John” (1985), “Lucy” (1990), which was serialised in The New Yorker, “The Autobiography of My Mother” (1996), winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, “Mr. Potter” (2002) and “See Now Then” (2013), which won an American Book Award. Colonialism and its legacy and the relationship between mothers and daughters run through them. Her non-fiction includes “A Small Place” (1988), an essay on Antigua, its tourist industry and its colonial past, and “My Brother” (1997), a memoir of AIDS in her family that won the Prix Femina étranger in 2000. A keen gardener, she has also written “My Garden (Book)” and “Among Flowers”.
Kincaid lives in North Bennington, Vermont, and is Professor of African and African American Studies in Residence Emerita at Harvard University. She received the Paris Review Hadada Prize for lifetime achievement in 2022. Her recent books are the picture book “Party: A Mystery” (2019), illustrated by Ricardo Cortés, “An Encyclopedia of Gardening for Colored Children” (2024), illustrated by Kara Walker, and “Putting Myself Together” (2025), a collection of her writing.
Photo: Vogler, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons (cropped).