Rich Texts is a series for paid subscribers where I share quotes and why they made me stop and reflect. Not short, pithy, one- or two-sentence quotes, but whole paragraphs or poems, rich texts that I think are worth sharing and digging into.
Jamaica Kincaid was born and raised in Antigua, one of many small islands in the West Indies that was colonized by the British. In 1966, at age 17, she went to work as an au pair for a wealthy family in suburban New York City. After three years, she began her writing career, and changed her name to Kincaid (she was born Elaine Potter Richardson). She did not return to Antigua until the 1980’s.
Antigua and Barbuda, now one nation of two small islands, did not gain independence until the shockingly recent year of 1981. Kincaid's book A Small Place was published in 1988. It’s a small shiv of nonfiction, 81 poetic pages. At first it reads like a tour guide, who isn’t really trying to sell you on the island so much as forcing you to see it, to really see and understand it and its people. But in order to do so, the reader needs to see and understand the uncomfortable truths about British colonialism, and white supremacy.
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