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Jamaica Kincaid will read here on February 20 from her latest book. The memoir, My Brother, has been called "searing, heartbreaking, and unforgettable" and tells the story of her brother's life and untimely death. |
On February 20, critically acclaimed writer Jamaica Kincaid will read from her latest book, a memoir of her brother, Devon Drew, who died of AIDS in 1996 at age thirty-three.
My Brother tells the true story of Kincaid's family on the island of Antigua--a constellation centered around the powerful figure of her mother. At the heart of Kincaid's story is her riveting depiction of the life of her younger brother.
A New York Times review of My Brother noted: "This book will be described as an AIDS memoir, but that is neither its true purpose nor its power. It is a sustained meditation on the grinding wheel of family, with mother always at the hub; on the countries of our past, both real and emotional, which we have fled and in which we have felt like strangers; on death as a devastating injury and dying as an irritating inconvenience." Kincaid's account of her brother's short life has been called "incantatory, poetic, and often shockingly frank."
Kincaid teaches at Harvard University and was a longtime staff writer for the New Yorker magazine. She won critical acclaim for her novels, which include Annie John, The Autobiography of My Mother, and Lucy; the short story collection At the Bottom of the River; and a nonfiction book about her native Antigua, A Small Place. Whatever the genre, Kincaid has said that she always writes autobiographically. The New York Review of Books called her newest work "a virtuoso performance," noting that "Kincaid's rhythms and the circularity of her thought patterns in language bring Gertrude Stein to mind. She is an eccentric and altogether impressive descendant."
The event, which was postponed from November due to a snowstorm, is cosponsored by the Inclusiveness Program and the Odyssey Bookshop. See calendar section for details.
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