Jamaica Kincaid: The Art of Fiction

As a seventeen-year-old au pair, Jamaica Kincaid came to the United States from Antigua, which was a British colony until 1981. Her first story, “Girl,” made her famous in an instant. It consisted of only one sentence and appeared in the New Yorker, for which she later worked herself. Images and moods of her childhood on the Caribbean island shaped her work. Kincaid talks with author Gabriele von Arnim about the influences and principles of her writing. She tells why critics accused her of writing too personally and angrily, and why she is now considered a pioneer of garden literature.

»Wash the white clothes on Monday and put them on the stone heap; wash the color clothes on Tuesday and put them on the clothesline to dry; don’t walk bare-head in the hot sun; cook pumpkin fritters in very hot sweet oil« [from »Girl«]

Moderation: Gabriele von Arnim
Speaker: Patrizia Carlucci
Language: English
Interpreter: Lilian Astrid Geese, Silvia Schreiber

Due to unforeseen private circumstances the author cannot be present in Berlin. She participates remotely.