Jamaica Kincaid, world-renowned author of short stories, novels and essays, has finally returned to Harvard after a recent sabbatical. Back as a visiting lecturer, Kincaid dishes on plant collecting, the future of British journalists, and how to write—and live—well.
1. FM: What’s your writing process? Do you sit down at your desk, and know exactly where your story will take you?
JK: I sit down at my desk and I know it will be difficult in this way and difficult in that way. Every book has a different process. You think this person is going to get up and cross the room. That’s what I intend but sometimes, the room might be as long as the Sahara desert.
2. FM: As the Creative Writing thesis deadline approaches, what do you look for in a budding novelist?
JK: I’m not really looking for anything. The ones who have been novelists who have succeeded had it in themselves. I was just the spatula. I don’t look for it—it’s there. You can just see.
3. FM: How then do you see your role as a teacher?
JK: I think the teacher is a kind of servant, the best kind of servant. I’m looking to be of service, to teach, but sometimes up it comes—a brilliant writer. It’s a thrilling thing to see a young person coming up in this world of writing that is so ancient. It’s fantastic. It just makes me so excited to see. I love young people.
4. FM: How did your love for writing start?
JK: People who knew me when I was a child said I have always written. I remember always reading. I just loved books. It got me in a lot of trouble. I would steal them, because once I read a book, I couldn’t bare to part with it. So I would steal books from the library.
5. FM: What kind of books?
JK: Oh, usual children’s books: Cherry Ames, Nancy Drew. I had a Bible, which I read all the time and a dictionary my mother gave me for my seventh birthday and I read it as a book.
FM: You read the dictionary front to back?
JK: Yes! I still do. And collect dictionaries. It had a great influence on my writing.
6. FM: What do you read, besides the dictionary, today?
JK: I like to read about the lives of plant collectors and mountaineers. I like accounts of people climbing mountains though I myself do not want to climb mountains. Generally people who write about their adventures in mountains tend to be good writers.
7. FM: Why the interest in plants?
JK: I’m a gardener. My name is even registered in a collection. It’s actually the thing I’m most proud of: my name in plant collecting. It’s not even my name, you would never know what the “K” stands for if I didn’t tell you but I suppose the anonymity makes it a treasure for me. In a way, I’m more proud of it than writing books.
8. FM: You came to the United States at 17 to be an au pair. How was it?
JK: Well I was quite miserable, but I was very lucky. It was great fun in fact to be young in New York. I cut off my hair, bleached it, I dressed in a fashionable way of old clothes because I couldn’t afford new ones. I became a sort of exotic figure, took a lot of drugs, had a lot of sex with people I never saw again. Did lots of things that would kill you now, but it was that sort of time. Everyone was nice and open and I came at a time when it was easier to be a black woman in America than ever before. I was lucky, and also I was kind of stupid in the sense that I didn’t know I could be heard. It was a fools threading where angels fared to go. I was just lucky.
9. FM: In “Autobiography of My Mother,” Xuela’s decision to shun the love of Roland and chose to marry Dr. Bailey is shocking. Why does such a strong character choose a path of self-defeat? Why doesn’t she choose her happy ending?
JK: You say the correct words. A strong character chooses for herself. The point isn’t horrible or not horrible. The point is ‘choose for herself.’ Happiness is very overrated... as far as literature is concerned.
10. FM: Your novels often discuss heroines who grow up in a culture of British colonialism, and fight against its constraints. You were educated under the British system, which, along with its language and literature, has shaped who you are. How do you come to terms with such two seemingly opposing ideals?
JK: They are not to be reconciled. That’s there is a general feeling that two things that are opposed to each other must not exist there should be some closure harmony. I don’t believe that. The British were horrible; they had great poets. They should have never been allowed off that island and if I had my way none of them would be off that island to this day. I think British journalists should be expatriated, repatriated to UK and should not be allowed back to US for 100 years. I think they have done more to ruin US culture than all the illegal immigrants from Mexico in the world. And you can quote me on that.
11. FM: So how do you identify yourself nationally?
JK: I’m an American and an African-American. I’m an American. That becomes more and more the default of all of us. I love America the more the worse it gets. Maybe I can love it less because it is going to get better.
12. FM: So how do you feel about Obama?
JK: Oh my God, I still smile every time I see him. I know he will do all sorts of presidents’ things I won’t like, but it’s so nice to love the president.
13. FM: You have an uncanny ability to write about basically anything. You discuss everything from sexuality, humiliation, and isolation. Is anything off limits?
JK: No, not at all. When I am a person sitting before you, I am a moral person I am a good person. But when I am writing, I have no loyalties. I am the most treacherous person, and that’s what I tell my students. When writing, betrayal is the word but when you stop, sainthood is required.
14. FM: How does your current life now compare to your past life experiences? Cambridge must seem pretty boring...
JK: Oh no! I like Cambridge. No, no I am very fortunate. It is quite exciting! My students I look forward to seeing them. I’m 59 years old—I can’t go bar hopping all the time. A quiet life is what I like right now.
15. FM: What are your plans for the future?
JK: I have none. To teach, to write, to read, to travel... just to live.
