“These stories have all of poetry’s virtues—care for language, joy in the sheer sounds of words, and evocative power…beautiful to listen to.” Anne Tyler, New York Times bestselling author
Description
This collection is Jamaica Kincaid’s earliest published writings: her inspired, lyrical short stories.
These stories plunge the listener gently into another way of perceiving both the physical world and its elusive inhabitants. Her narrative is, by turns, naïvely whimsical and biblical in its assurance, and it speaks of what is partially remembered, partly divined. The memories often concern a childhood in the Caribbean—family, manners, and landscape—as distilled and transformed by Kincaid’s special style and vision.
Kincaid leads us to consider, as if for the first time, the powerful ties between mother and child, the beauty and destructiveness of nature, the gulf between the masculine and the feminine, the significance of such familiar things as a house, a cup, a pen. Transfiguring our human form and our surroundings—shedding skin, darkening an afternoon, painting a perfect place—these stories tell us something we didn’t know, in a way we hadn’t expected.
Praise
“These stories have all of poetry’s virtues—care for language, joy in the sheer sounds of words, and evocative power…beautiful to listen to.” Anne Tyler, New York Times bestselling author
“She jumps with grace and ease from the mundane to the enormous, and, fascinated, we believe her.” Village Voice
“The voice—incantatory, lyric, rhapsodic—is closer to the condition of poetry and music than to fiction in any of its ordinary registers.” Publishers Weekly
“Her first collection is flecked with individuality and talent—especially in the more ironic sequences…Kincaid shows vivid promise in this slim debut.” Kirkus Reviews
“Eccentric, visionary pieces…[with] all the force of illumination and even prophetic power.” New York Times Book Review
Details
| Language | English |
|---|---|
| Release Day | Mar 13, 2017 |
| Release Date | March 14, 2017 |
| Release Date Machine | 1489449600 |
| Imprint | Blackstone Publishing |
| Provider | Blackstone Publishing |
| Categories | Literature & Fiction, Genre Fiction, Anthologies & Short Stories, Literary Fiction, Fiction - All, Fiction - Adult |
Author Bio
Jamaica Kincaid is the author of short stories, novels, and nonfiction, including See Now Then, which was a New York Times bestseller. She is the 2022 recipient of the Hadada Award, the Paris Review’s award for lifetime achievement. She is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters and has received a Guggenheim Fellowship, the Lannan Literary Award for Fiction, the Prix Femina Étranger, the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award, the Clifton Fadiman Medal, and the Dan David Prize for Literature. She is a professor of African and African American studies at Harvard and a visiting writer at UCLA in the spring of 2022. She was born in St. John’s and is a former reporter for the New Yorker magazine.
Narrator Bio
Robin Miles, named a Golden Voice by AudioFile magazine, has twice won the prestigious Audie Award for Best Narration, an Audie Award for directing, and many Earphones Awards. Her film and television acting credits include The Last Days of Disco, Primary Colors, Law & Order: Criminal Intent, Law & Order, New York Undercover, National Geographic’s Tales from the Wild, All My Children, and One Life to Live. She regularly gives seminars to members of SAG and AFTRA actors’ unions, and in 2005 she started Narration Arts Workshop in New York City, offering audiobook recording classes and coaching. She holds a BA degree in theater studies from Yale University, an MFA in acting from the Yale School of Drama, and a certificate from the British American Drama Academy in England.
Overview
This collection is Jamaica Kincaid’s earliest published writings: her inspired, lyrical short stories.
These stories plunge the listener gently into another way of perceiving both the physical world and its elusive inhabitants. Her narrative is, by turns, naïvely whimsical and biblical in its assurance, and it speaks of what is partially remembered, partly divined. The memories often concern a childhood in the Caribbean—family, manners, and landscape—as distilled and transformed by Kincaid’s special style and vision.
Kincaid leads us to consider, as if for the first time, the powerful ties between mother and child, the beauty and destructiveness of nature, the gulf between the masculine and the feminine, the significance of such familiar things as a house, a cup, a pen. Transfiguring our human form and our surroundings—shedding skin, darkening an afternoon, painting a perfect place—these stories tell us something we didn’t know, in a way we hadn’t expected.
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