A BOOK OF THE YEAR IN THE NEW STATESMAN AND THE TLS

A landmark collection of essays by the iconic writer Jamaica Kincaid.

'Curious and idiosyncratic and enjoyable' - Zadie Smith
‘An unaffectedly sumptuous, irresistible writer’ - Susan Sontag
‘What a writer' - Ali Smith
‘Both a daughter of Brontë and Woolf and her own inimitable self’ The Wall Street Journal
'If you are new to Kincaid, I envy you’ - Jackie Kay

That’s the way I write. It’s never going to stop. And the more it makes people annoyed the more I will do it.

Jamaica Kincaid was born Elaine Potter Richardson in Antigua in 1949. She has always been herself. Her work began to be published after she moved to New York at the age of nineteen, and by 1974 she was contributing to The New Yorker’s ‘Talk of the Town’ column, where she later became a staff writer.

This is a blazing collection that spans more than five decades of Jamaica Kincaid’s writing. From Muhammad Ali, Diana Ross, gardening and motherhood, to colonialism and the act of writing, Putting Myself Together shows how this witty and fearless writer became one of the most remarkable and influential voices of a generation.

‘An unaffectedly sumptuous, irresistible writer’ -- Susan Sontag
‘What a writer – elegant, uncompromising, simultaneously direct and layered and complex’ -- Ali Smith, author of Gliff
‘I’ve read everything by Jamaica Kincaid, and I’ve still never read anyone like her. If you are new to Kincaid, I envy you’ -- Jackie Kay, author of May Day
‘Both a daughter of Brontë and Woolf and her own inimitable self’ -- The Wall Street Journal
'A sparkling collection of essays spanning five decades. Kincaid, in my view, is among the few writers in the very top rank: the real thing. Whether she’s skewering a piece of someone else’s prose or dilating on roses (she writes about gardening a lot), this author never misses' -- Sara Wheeler * TLS *

Jamaica Kincaid was born in St. John's, Antigua. Her books include At the Bottom of the River, Annie John, Lucy, The Autobiography of My Mother, and My Brother. She lives with her family in Vermont.