Prize-winning author reads from her works

Prize-winning author Jamaica Kincaid, whose works include Lucy and A Small Place, lectured and read to a packed room of students, faculty and other interested visitors at the Annenberg School Thursday night. "We are in the presence of a necessary authorial vision," English professor Herman Beavers said in introducing Kincaid. "His mouth was like an island," Kincaid began. The audience listened intently, occasionaly chuckling at Kincaid's ironic humor, as she read from "Song of Roland," a short story recently published in the New Yorker. "The impulse to possess is within every heart," she read. "I chose to possess myself." The story, according to Kincaid, was one past New Yorker editor Bob Gottlieb had hated. "But he didn't like anything except himself," Kincaid remarked, only half joking. Kincaid answered questions after reading from her work. In speaking of the first books she read, Kincaid reminisced that she "had to copy parts of Paradise Lost when I was bad." She also remarked, to the amusement of the audience, that she "fell in love in some peculiar way with Satan. He was always portrayed in a lively sort of way [in Paradise Lost]." Along with Paradise Lost, Kincaid said, the Bible was a major influence on her writing. She also said that themes involving the spoiling of something perfect and the power of the relationship between "the captured and the captive" often run through her work. The audience said it was charmed and intrigued by Kincaid. "I'd like to have a cup of coffee with her," College junior Kamu Patton said. "I was moved by her passion." College senior Hadley Davis described Kincaid as "an exquisite writer. She seemed like such a warm interesting woman." Akhematon Jones, a nine year-old boy in the audience, informed Kincaid that he wrote well and that he might want to be a writer too. "Read anything the really great people wrote, no matter what complexion they are," advised Kincaid. "And," she added with a smile, "you don't have to have dinner with them. They're dead anyway."

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