Jamaica Kincaid

born in 1949 as Elaine Potter Richardson in the Caribbean, is an Antiguan-American author. At the age of 17, after her mother remarried and had to support three half-brothers, she moved to New York as an au pair. There, she soon became the writer Jamaica Kincaid. Her first story, »Girl« – a single-sentence piece published in The New Yorker – catapulted her to fame. Many of her award-winning short stories and novels explore Kincaid’s unique position as a daughter, a woman, a Black person, and a citizen of a former colony on the margins of the world. In addition to her weighty themes, Kincaid is renowned for her distinctive voice and her highly autobiographical approach to writing – developed long before the memoir trend took hold. Jamaica Kincaid converted to Judaism. She teaches African and African American Studies at Harvard and lives in Vermont, where, when she’s not writing, she indulges in her second passion: gardening. In 2004, she was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters. In fall 2025, she will be a Fellow at the American Academy in Berlin.

Last Update: 2025

Am Grunde des Flusses
Deutsche-Verlags-Anstalt
Stuttgart, 1986 [Original: 1983]
[Ü: Sarah und Moritz Kirsch]

Lucy
Wolfgang Krüger Verlag
Frankfurt a.M., 1991 [Original: 1990]
[Ü: Stefanie Schaffer-de Vries]

Die Autobiographie meiner Mutter
Wolfgang Krüger Verlag
Frankfurt a.M., 1996 [Original: 1995]
[Ü: Christel Dormagen]

Damals, jetzt und überhaupt.
Unionsverlag
Zürich, 2013 [Original: 2013]
[Ü: Brigitte Heinrich]

Die Blumen des Himalaya
Terra Mater Books
München 2018 [Original: 2005]
[Ü: Nadine Lipp]

Nur eine kleine Insel
Kampa Verlag
Zürich, 2021 [Original: 1988]
[Ü: Ilona Lauscher]