Profile; Interview with Jamaica Kincaid

But she first came to New York as an au pair to send money back to her poor family in the Caribbean and rose to become one of the New Yorker magazine's most celebrated writers. She's just published her tenth book. Mr. Potter a conversation with Jamaican Kade next on profile. Potter Richardson was born and raised in poverty on the British West Indies island of Antigua. At the age of 17 she moved to New York City where she held several jobs while continuing her education including friend Kone a college in New Hampshire. But after a year she returned to New York looking for work as a writer. She changed her name to Jamaica can Cade established a local writing connections and was soon picked up by New Yorker magazine where she worked for nearly 20 years. Her first book was published in 1983 and her temp was just released last month. Her most recent awards include the Lannan Literary Award and the Prix Femina

holiday. Her stories continue to appear in magazines including The New Yorker and The Paris Review. Miss Kincaid teaches at Harvard University and lives in Bennington with her child children. Thank you for being with us and did I pronounce those prices correctly. I think. So. I feel like the French what I asked you before. You know help solving the border right up here. Was there some point in your childhood where you knew you wanted to be a writer. I mean you stole books from the library you saw this wonderful book. But did you did you have a sense that you would be a writer you know. You know I as a child was a reader and I thought that that's what people did with books is they read them. I didn't think people wrote serious books anymore. I thought that it was something that had gone out of fashion because I'd never read a book that was written in the 20th century when I was a child I think. I started reading 20th century literature when I was about 19 years old

and the woman of the household where I was a pair. Gave me things to read was she who gave me Simone de Beauvoir book on feminism and Virginia Woolf and Gertrude Stein things I manage. But no I just thought what I would grow up to be was it would be a reader and certainly if people wrote books they were not people who looked like me though you know I didn't I don't think you have to look you have to identify with people who look like you just identify with anything. But yeah I think what about imagination I mean often you know when life is so bleak it's hard to to value even an imagination and then you started reading her start which is interesting again did you know you had a unique voice that you wanted to express and and was OK to express. Well. I don't think anybody told me.

I had a unique voice and it was OK to express it. I left school I left Franconia and while I was there I would. I started photography and I wanted I would start writing out the photographs and all my writing then was hated by my teachers. In fact one of them said I really came to class just to show what I was wearing because I was always dressing up in weird clothes and he probably was right. But there's nothing wrong with dressing up. Anyway I went back to New York and I said I'm a writer and I started to write. And really the first person who thought there was anything interesting and in the way I wrote was of a man named George Crowe and he's the one who took me to The New Yorker and to the editor there and the first short story I wrote I remember it was a story called Girl and I remember writing it and thinking well this is not like any short

story I've ever read or anything like I've ever read but I don't care this is my writing and I'm going to just do this I don't care who likes it. And I gave it to the editor and he was ecstatic about it it was sort of strange because I couldn't imagine anyone else liking it. And he loved it in the pub. Day that was the beginning right. We're just so I mean it's such a charming story even when you met or were introduced to George Truman. Yeah. He wrote about you because he was so right he wrote about did he or you know was going to eventually be about you writing for The New Yorker. I don't think so. You know he was incredibly generous to this young peculiar woman you know I had no family I had no one really in the world I was just this young black woman in New York. And I say young black woman in New York because really everyone did see me as a young black woman I didn't see myself as a young black woman I saw myself as incredibly lonely and.

And really quite isolated and how to make a place to lie self. And on my own terms I didn't want to marry someone for security I didn't want to take a job for I didn't want to do anything that would have made me more comfortable. I wanted to do everything that pleased me and so I wrote in a way that pleased me and brought me some satisfaction I lived a life that brought me satisfaction. And it was satisfaction of a certain kind was just satisfaction of integrity it was mine. Did you ever think you'd go back to and to give an anti-John kind of says I will never go back. Never for a minute thought I would go back. I didn't want to go back. Love going back for a visit but I didn't think of I don't think of living there now. I love visiting but it's I still visit. I am an American.

Well certainly you've written a lot about antiques and your most recent book. Mr. Potter. Again it's about it is it's a story of your biological father not one that really acknowledged you. There's a scene about Mr. Potter in New York. Oh yes that really is a true it isn't. I mean that was one of my questions was it true see where you are do you are you saying what. What do I call you. Yes I mean I can remember it so clearly it was a Sunday and this person just showed up and said he was my father I was in my early 30s and was the most sustained conversation I'd ever had with him. I had others but that one was. The. First sustained conversation. And with him and I said after a while I said you know what should I call you. I mean I didn't know if people called him daddy whatever. And he said why died. And he said it with such a. The hurt of a sort of peculiar I thought you know how could he be hurt

by my asking you who are you to me because I don't know you say you're my father would you ever behave like that and when he said Why Dad I just laughed. Well you didn't include that I didn't include that and I didn't. Never called I never called him anything. I never called him again. But that is a true saying it in a way the whole book is naming him it's giving him history but it's giving him your version of history. Oh absolutely no leaving you some power only over a man who just wasn't there for you. That's true well he had his own power over me as a parents do over their children and I have my own power over him as writers do characters. Perhaps we're you squared your book as well as your other books talk about defining moments in a life when they're repeated again and again there's powerful imagery and I'm wondering what are some defining moments of your childhood. Good grief you know I never would have thought of it that way as writing about defining moments. It is true that I isolated incidences

and they see they are they must be defining defining moments in my life as a child would be born when my mother burned my books because I read too much and neglected my writing and I thought time I. I never. I didn't know that there was a history to burning but I knew it was enormous and I I did experience it as an attempt at murdering me. But you know my mother with her complicated relationship to her children and her attempts to murder them were so common that it's not really unusual. I often think of her as kind of Cronos is it the God who gave birth to his children in the morning and eat them at night. Yeah I think of her that way. So that would have been a defining moment and defining moment in every way was when my brother was my first brother was born I was 9 years. And I was so jealous of him I couldn't

look at him. And at one point I dropped him he fell out of my hands. But I think of it as dropping him even at the time it was experienced as dropping him. And I was made to eat my supper by myself and then I was sent to Dominated to live with my grandparents. But here is another defining moment and this is old. All tied in when I lived with my grandparents. I want to I miss my mother. I've never been apart from her so and I wanted to go back home. And I began to write letters to her telling her how badly I was treated and I left them in a place where they could be found. And when her sister found them and read them and I knew they were untrue. She was so angry she put me on the next boat. And I think as defining moments that would have been the first time I understood an act of writing could change my

life. The act of writing speaking of literary sense or writing and reading is a primary theme in Mr. Potter. He was illiterate but your mother could read. And you went to school. But as you say with a some point intellectual pursuit becomes threatening. And yet in this in this AM Yes here. Yeah. And now you teach at Harvard. Yes so I'm wondering what is your experience of education. It's its power and its limitations. I don't think it has any limitations really I wouldn't put it that I think it has only good. And what you do with it is something else but it by itself it's completely good and there are not to be. Not to put any modification on educate educate knowledged all the time every minute of the day. For me the defining moments the act of reading. When I was about

three and a half years old my mother taught me to read because she was a great reader and I would interrupt her reading and she thought that if I could read I would enjoy reading so much that I would leave her alone and she would have to I would interrupt her. That turned out to be true but it led to my being isolated from her because as you know we know from the Garden of Eden knowledge leads to it so has its own invention it leads you to your own invention and. And I went into a world invented a world on my own and it gave me independence it gave me. I does everything it did everything that God did not want. Adam and Eve to do I. I knew things I knew I began to know myself. I began to have autonomy and authority. I was a credible threat to my family structure.

It didn't become. A threat it isolated me from my family in the snow. It was heartbreaking for you. It was heart wrenching and I would do it I would heart if all hotter'n were that I would bottle it and give it away. That's the kind of heart wrench you want. It was wonderful. Why don't we get a sample on Mr. Potter. This is the first paragraph. So long first for voice practically over a page. And there are some. It's beautiful. And that day the sun was in its usual place up about and in the middle of the sky and it shone in its usual way so harshly bright making even the shadows Paden making even the shadows seek shelter. That day the sun was in its usual place up about and in the middle of the sky. But Mr. Potter did not note this. So accustomed was he to this. The sun in its

usual place up about and in the middle of the sky. If the sun had not been in its usual place that would have made a great big change in Mr. Potter's day. It would have meant rain however briefly such a thing rain might fall but it would have changed Mr. Potter's day so used was he to the sun in its usual place when about and in the middle of the sky. Mr. Porter breathed in his normal way his heart was beating in its normal way up and down underneath the covering of his black skin. Up and down underneath his white knitted cotton vest next to his very black skin. Up and down underneath his plainly woven white cotton shirt that was on top of the knitted cotton vest which lay next to his skin so his heart breathed in its normal way. And he put on his trousers and in the pocket of his trousers he placed a white handkerchief. And all of this was as normal as the way his heart be. All this his

putting on his clothes in just that way as normal as the way his heart beat the heart beating normally and the close reassuring to Mr. Potter and to things beyond Mr. Potter things that didn't or know they needed such reassurance. Thank you. I'd like to talk about the style a little bit. People have called it Poe prose poetry stream of consciousness lyrical meditative and in this book you know almost has a biblical cadence. How does that style support your curators and the work. Oh gosh. I can't. I don't know how I would. Support the characters. You know I I mean the so clearly this the style of something the way I choose to write it seems to me the best way to render the subject and the experience the feeling

that I'm I'm writing about. I said it seemed to me that I am mostly interested in taking some particular things some particular what you would you call these isolated moments in defining moments I guess and. And making some starting with some point. And sometimes it seems like beginning with the sun just in the middle of the day but eventually. I repeat it in such a way that it it becomes a character all by itself. And how does it support the character or the style of mind to put the character I do not know. I do know that when I doing it it seems the best thing to do too. Partly to keep myself writing in a way I write in a very selfish way

because I'm not thinking of the reader at all and what they might require a reader often seems to require as a real story. And in our contemporary American experience or a reader or suddenly reviewers tell you this you know they require something that happened and something you can attach to and something you can I create something concrete and something you can identify with. If I wrote out of that. You know. If I were if I wrote out of that I would just hang myself. Yeah yours is you know this has the emotional side it's quite wonderful. And some readers prefer this just think it's the most delightful thing I've heard so I certainly see why when I read it. You know I think this is just what I would like to read you know. I've been reading a mutual

friend Dickens and. There are parts of Dickens that is so modern. I haven't ever come across anything like it in Joyce or or Virginia Woolf or any pain. People who think it's so far out. You know and yet we think of Dickens as you know a great storyteller but actually I've been looking at it and breaking it down and he's a great storyteller every 10 pages in between is this is this us writing about you know someone's teeth and the teeth have an existential life or some some moment just some tiny thing a cup. You know anyway so that's what I I said it turns out that that's what I like Dickens for not the great story another theme that seems to be in Mr. Potter is the theme of refugee. You have these two characters who are part of your father's life a couple from Lebannon and another from chuckles of hockey. They have had to flee their

countries. Yes your ancestors were forced to leave their homes for that's right. That's right. You fled the island for the United States. What is home. Well. What is home to me I guess you know is it Vermont or for yes for Monti's home to me. But I think it's probably. I realize this even if I live here for the rest of the next hundred years and I hope I live for another hundred years I like the life so much. I you know this idea of home one homeland is it's kind of amusing because. It shifts and certainly in the last 500 years if anything that's interesting about the last 500 years starting in 49 to two is this incredible displacement of people the significant thing about 40 92 is that it started with a voyage and it's a voyage that we're all

still on in every possible way that the world is full of this vast. I have a permanent displacement as in the plane as this case of the. People native to this part of the world and of course we don't challenge their idea that they are native to this part of the world. Yeah it's just great Schiff's. Oh disappearances. I mean you're lucky if you are alive or if you have a. Continuing memory that last over one hundred and fifty years to one place if you're attached to one place. That's what's so interesting about people talking about their homeland and their right to live here and there. I mean I think these questions are so. In the so much in the air because we suspect that we're all in motion neither from one place to the next or even out of this very existence as a group of people from time to time. I mean what was the great star of the last century this attempt to erase a group of people

you know in the 20th century. It's as if when we try moving some people from here to here we try moving ourselves from here to here. How about moving some people out of it altogether. If it was I sort of very interesting to me. I mean to me the great American novel is you know about murder or murdering of people or the attempt to. To make people stay still in a certain state permanently such as slavery Well women this is a bit of a jump. But you know there's all this America is about the pursuit of happiness. And you have said that life is not about the pursuit of happiness for yours it's not it's about the pursuit of truth. Yeah. And in a way you've had a fairy tale life to some degree. You've had this stunning career beautiful children. You had a long marriage and all of this looked you know a beautiful home with gardens and look beautiful.

I'm kind of it was almost like happiness happened to you. I'm wondering as you look for truth is it easier to find in comfort or in discomfort. Oh I think it is for you. I think it's easiest to find by looking comfort or discomfort is no. An issue. You know because comfort can blind you to it. Discomfort can blind you to it. And I don't want to set myself up as someone who seeks the truth. I do like to know what really happened. I do like to know I can live with what really happened more than I can live with with a lie. The idea of that my life seemed seems beautiful. I think. There is there must be something about me that make people say that

but it really is an ordinary life it's a marriage. It's an American story. You know by life I mean there are so many people who come here with absolutely nothing and end up with a great deal. And it's great deals go I haven't ended up with that much I have a mortgage right. But in the south in Amazing yes in my realm that I certainly take my my share of good fortune and I hope to have more. But pursuing. The truth I mean it's funny you say that because I teach a course on Thomas Jefferson and I'm always fascinated by this idea of his pursuit of of happiness and of course I've come to the conclusion that the pursuit of happiness is just that your right to sit somewhere and imagine anything. You know and he was surrounded by people who if they needed to do something during the time

they were asleep they should be asleep. They had to ask permission to do the thing that they should do he was surrounded by slaves. So it's no I think that the idea of what he meant by the pursuit of happiness is not pursued enough or not understood enough well enough but I've been so that's to pursue happiness for me is to be able. To sit somewhere and have the time to sit somewhere and read Dickens and just imagine how did he write that sentence. But it's not a car oh well no I think that's how we interpret it is you know sure have things yes another emotion you said Americans fear anger and they they certainly do now. Your anger has been unsettling for some some critique some critics criticize you for books that are too angry. Hard for me to believe. In what ways do Americans need to be more open to anger. But will they. I don't know that anyone needs to be open to anger sometimes what you perceive as anger is just someone telling you something true. You're standing on my

net and it's true you are standing on my neck and you know metaphorically speaking. And I think when someone tells you you're doing something violent to them even if they told it to you in to the tune of a lullaby you would still perceive it as angry because they're telling you you would you're hurting them. And do you think. That if you're hurting them they should be angry with you and they should kill you. And. You know I think. You know we are. Incredibly afraid of people telling us we're doing something wrong. Unfortunately we're out of time and I didn't even get to gardening. You know so well and maybe we'll get you back some time. That would be why thank you. This is been terrific. Thank you John Mica thank you. Thank you for being with us today.