Jamaica Kincaid

Born in Antigua in 1949, Jamaica Kincaid moved to the United States to attend college. Her works are semi-autobiographical, and deal most frequently with two particular themes. The first theme deals with Antigua and island life in the Caribbean. Kincaid captures the essence of the island through realistic images and vivid descriptions. While all of her works treat this theme, her first nonfiction work, A Small Place, deals exclusively with Antigua and the lives and lifestyles …

…offered by the mother shows the role of women in the community. Women were in charge of domestic affairs and running the household, doing the cooking, cleaning, shopping, sewing, and laundry. The advice all deals with subjects that are stereotypically "women's work." As the girl struggles to find her own identity, she struggles and rebels against the role into which society trapped her mother, and into which it is trying to trap her as well.