See Now Then (Kincaid) - Author Bio

Author Bio
• Aka—Elaine Potter Richardson
• Birth—May 25, 1949
• Where—St. John's, Antigua
• Education—N/A
• Awards—Center for Fiction's Clifton Fadiman Medal;
   Lannan Literary Award for Fiction, Prix Femina Etranger;
   Anisfield-Wolf Book Award; Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest
   Award
• Currently—lives in North Bennington, Vermont, and
   Claremont California.


Jamaica Kincaid, Caribbean novelist, gardener, and gardening writer, is the author of six novels, including her most recent, So Then Now (2013)

She was born in the city of St. John's on the island of Antigua, which she left at age seventeen for the U.S. After working as an au pair in Manhattan, she fell in with a group of writers for The New Yorker where she began writing the magazine's "Talk of the Town" column. Then-editor William Shawn started publishing her fiction in the late 1970s, and in 1979 she married his son Allen (a composer and the brother of actor Wallace).

Kincaid's short fiction has appeared in The Paris Review and The New Yorker, where her novel Lucy was originally serialized. Her first book, At the Bottom of the River (1983), was nominated for the PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction. 

Her novels are loosely autobiographical, though Kincaid has warned against interpreting their autobiographical elements too literally: "Everything I say is true, and everything I say is not true. You couldn't admit any of it to a court of law. It would not be good evidence. Her work often prioritizes "impressions and feelings over plot development" and often features conflict with both a strong maternal figure and colonial and neocolonial influences.

Kincaid's marriage to Allen Shawn ended in 2002. They have two grown children, Harold (music producer/songwriter), and a daughter, Annie (singer/songwriter Annie Rosamond). Kincaid lives in North Bennington, Vermont, during the summers and teaches at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, California, during the academic year.(Adapted from Wikipedia.)