Annie John - by Jamaica Kincaid (Paperback)

About the Book

"Annie John, the headstrong, brilliant heroine of Jamaica Kincaid's bestseller, is a child of Antigua but an adolescent of the whole world. Her passage into young adulthood--the tumultuous love of her mother and their gradual separation--is a story that will speak to listeners of all ages."--Provided by publisher.

Book Synopsis

The essential, urgent coming-of-age novel by Jamaica Kincaid, a reinventor of the form.

Since her first, prizewinning collection of stories, At the Bottom of the River, Jamaica Kincaid's work has been met with nothing short of amazement. The New York Times hailed her "prophetic power" and the Los Angeles Times Book Review said, "No one else seems to be writing quite this way."

With Annie John, the story of a young girl coming of age in Antigua, Kincaid tore open the theme that lies at the heart of her fierce, incantatory novels: the ambivalent and essential bonds created by a mother's love. In this book, written in Kincaid's lucid, elemental style, Annie John's ambivalence is universally familiar and wrenchingly real.

Review Quotes

"So touching and familiar it could be happening to any of us . . . and that's exactly the book's strength, its wisdom, its truth." --The New York Times Book Review

"So neon-bright that the traditional story of a young girl's passage into adolescence takes on a shimmering strangeness." --Elaine Kendall, The Los Angeles Times

About the Author

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, My Brother, Mr. Potter, See Now Then, and An Encyclopedia of Gardening for Colored Children (with Kara Walker). She lives in Vermont.