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A Small Place
Lyrical, sardonic, and forthright, A Small Place magnifies our vision of one small place with Swiftian wit and precision. Jamaica Kincaid's expansive essay candidly appraises the ten-by-twelve-mile island in the British West Indies where she grew up, and makes palpable the impact of European colonization and tourism. The book is a missive to the traveler, whether American or European, who wants to escape the banality and corruption of some large place. Kincaid, eloquent and resolute, reminds us that the Antiguan people, formerly British subjects, are unable to escape the same drawbacks of their own tiny realm—that behind the benevolent Caribbean scenery are human lives, always complex and often fraught with injustice.
81 pages, Paperback
First published July 1, 1988
About the author
Jamaica Kincaid
81 books1,511 followersJamaica Kincaid is an Antiguan-American novelist, essayist, gardener, and gardening writer. She was born in St. John's, Antigua (part of the twin-island nation of Antigua and Barbuda). She lives in North Bennington, Vermont (in the United States), during the summers, and is Professor of African and African American Studies in Residence at Harvard University during the academic year.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 1,587 reviews
June 2, 2017
Jamaica Kincaid is an award winning author and essayist. Her short yet provocative essay A Small Place describing life in her native Antigua has earned inclusion in the book 500 Great Books by Women by Erica Bauermeister. In this essay, Kincaid details foreign presence in Antigua and its influence on her native population.
Kincaid starts her essay describing how one would feel when arriving at Antigua's only airport. A tourist would see a sparkling sea and lush flora but would not notice the life of the island. As in many Caribbean countries, tourists come to use beach resorts away from the everyday life on the island. They see palm trees and sip rum poolside but are not subject to the abject poverty plaguing most people who make Antigua home. As a result, there is a schism between the largely white European and American tourists and the predominately black Antiguan populace. Kincaid likely wrote this to make her readers feel uncomfortable or at least guilty if they have ever taken an island vacation, and only remained on a resort, not pouring money into the island economy.
The main reason Kincaid cites for this schism is that Antigua is largely a country of descendants of slaves, yet has been under British rule and government since the time of the Empire. The British attempted to impart their schools and religion and culture to a population that was nothing like themselves. Kincaid attended a British run school. It was a choice of that or having no future other than marriage and raising children. She points out that most of Antigua is still run this way, and even cites comparisons to the Papa Doc Duvalier regime in Haiti. In other words, Antigua remains a backward society, one that Kincaid would rather not live in.
I found A Small Place to be a provoking and powerful essay. Having never read Kincaid's work before, I am excited to read her novels if they are anywhere near as poignant as this essay. I am also interested to see if one of her novels perhaps is more worthy of inclusion in an anthology of great books by women authors. Jamaica Kincaid is merits reading, especially as I quest to read a diverse selection of authors from around the globe.
4 stars.
Kincaid starts her essay describing how one would feel when arriving at Antigua's only airport. A tourist would see a sparkling sea and lush flora but would not notice the life of the island. As in many Caribbean countries, tourists come to use beach resorts away from the everyday life on the island. They see palm trees and sip rum poolside but are not subject to the abject poverty plaguing most people who make Antigua home. As a result, there is a schism between the largely white European and American tourists and the predominately black Antiguan populace. Kincaid likely wrote this to make her readers feel uncomfortable or at least guilty if they have ever taken an island vacation, and only remained on a resort, not pouring money into the island economy.
The main reason Kincaid cites for this schism is that Antigua is largely a country of descendants of slaves, yet has been under British rule and government since the time of the Empire. The British attempted to impart their schools and religion and culture to a population that was nothing like themselves. Kincaid attended a British run school. It was a choice of that or having no future other than marriage and raising children. She points out that most of Antigua is still run this way, and even cites comparisons to the Papa Doc Duvalier regime in Haiti. In other words, Antigua remains a backward society, one that Kincaid would rather not live in.
I found A Small Place to be a provoking and powerful essay. Having never read Kincaid's work before, I am excited to read her novels if they are anywhere near as poignant as this essay. I am also interested to see if one of her novels perhaps is more worthy of inclusion in an anthology of great books by women authors. Jamaica Kincaid is merits reading, especially as I quest to read a diverse selection of authors from around the globe.
4 stars.
October 10, 2019
The obscenity of mass tourism in struggling paradises could not be shown more eloquently than in this short essay on Antigua, told by a native and addressing YOU - the tourist!
What do we actually know of the societies we invade to get our share of sunshine and blue, glittery water? Not that much. What do we actually DO to those societies when we come there for the settings and ignore the inhabitants as mere decoration at best, or as a nuisance at worst if we have a slight problem with (hidden or unhidden) racism?
A fierce plaidoyer for more awareness and responsibility, A Small Place targets blind and careless privilege in all its forms: in entrepreneurship, in politics, in luxury travelling...
Should be required holiday reading for more sustainable and humane interaction on our struggling planet!
What do we actually know of the societies we invade to get our share of sunshine and blue, glittery water? Not that much. What do we actually DO to those societies when we come there for the settings and ignore the inhabitants as mere decoration at best, or as a nuisance at worst if we have a slight problem with (hidden or unhidden) racism?
A fierce plaidoyer for more awareness and responsibility, A Small Place targets blind and careless privilege in all its forms: in entrepreneurship, in politics, in luxury travelling...
Should be required holiday reading for more sustainable and humane interaction on our struggling planet!
July 15, 2021
OH MY GOD! If there's one thing I can say about Jamaica Kincaid it's that she was fucking angry in this one. She definitely didn't hold back. It is as if someone had combined the frustration of Achebe's The Trouble with Nigeria and the wrath of Zola's J'Accuse! in one book. What a brutal sweeping blow!
It comes as no surprise that, when it was first published, A Small Place was criticized as a vitriolic attack on the government and people of Antigua. So much so that New Yorker editor Robert Gottlieb refused to publish it. According to Jamaica Kincaid, she was not only banned unofficially for five years from her home country, she also voiced concerns that had she gone back in that time, she worried she would be killed.
Personally, I found the essay incredibly refreshing. I love how blunt Kincaid is. Indictments like these are necessary. They can serve as wake up calls. They can relieve its writer. They can reveal the truth, or at least a side of the story that has always been suppressed. The "subaltern" finally speaks. And ya'll bitches better start listening!
Antigua and Barbuda are two islands lying between the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. With a combined total 440 km^2 (170 sq mi) it is a small place indeed. In 1632, Antigua was colonized through the efforts of Sir Thomas Warner who introduced slavery to the island by forcing West Africans to work on his tobacco and sugarcane plantations there. Slavery endured for over 200 years in Antigua, and was finally abolished in 1834. However, the economic condition of the former enslaved people failed to improve due to "land shortages and the universal refusal of credit". It is from these people that most of Antigua's Black (and mixed) population is descended.
The many examples she gives on the disparity (between the rich and the poor, the locals and the tourists, the Black/African and the white/European population) are incredibly disheartening to read about. For instance, she talks about the non-existent health care system, the low-quality hospitals, the fact that "when the Minister of Health himself doesn't feel well he takes the first plane to New York to see a real doctor" – a luxury that most of Antigua's citizens simply do not have.
Kincaid also reflects on the Queen's visit in 1985, and how "when the queen came, all the roads that she would travel on were paced anew, so that she would have been left with the impression that riding in a car in Antigua was a pleasant experience." It is examples like these that make me lose my faith in humanity. Sadly, it also reminded me of Petina Gappah's An Elegy for the Easterly, in which she described how Zimbabwe's shanty towns were forcibly cleared for the Queen's visit in 2005, which affected over 700.000 Zimbabweans directly through loss of their homes or livelihood. It is all the more frustrating that the West (Great Britain especially since these actions were prompted by the Queen's visit) did not take the appropriate measures.
In the first section, Kincaid employs the perspective of the tourist in order to demonstrate the inherent escapism in creating a distance from the realities of a visited place. She dissects a tourist's psyche by depicting how tourists create separation by othering the locale and the individuals that inhabit it. Kincaid also explores the various reasons why tourists are such a deep source of resentment for Antiguans.
The tourism industry is linked to a global economic system that ultimately does not translate into benefits for the very Antiguans who enable it. The tourist may experience the beauty on the surface of Antigua while being wholly ignorant of the actual political and social conditions that the Antiguan tourism industry epitomizes. Thereby, the tourism industry reinforces an exploitative power structure, which is something that the tourists themselves choose to ignore. In consequence, the tourism industry recolonizes Antigua by placing locals at a disenfranchised and subservient position in a global economic system that ultimately does not serve them.
All in all, A Small Place is a wonderful, eye-opening book that I'd highly recommend. I definitely wish it was longer and dove a little bit deeper into Antigua's history (colonial and pre-colonial) but other than that I am more than satisfied!
But nothing can erase my rage – not an apology, not a sum of money, not the death of the criminal – for this wrong can never be made right, and only the impossible can make me still: can a way be found to make what happened not have happened?A Small Place is an essay drawing on Kincaid's experiences growing up in Antigua, it is an indictment of the Antiguan government, the tourism industry and Antigua's British colonial legacy. Written in four sections, Kincaid combines social and cultural critique with her own experiences as well as a look into the island's history of imperialism to offer a powerful portrait of (post-)colonial Antigua.
It comes as no surprise that, when it was first published, A Small Place was criticized as a vitriolic attack on the government and people of Antigua. So much so that New Yorker editor Robert Gottlieb refused to publish it. According to Jamaica Kincaid, she was not only banned unofficially for five years from her home country, she also voiced concerns that had she gone back in that time, she worried she would be killed.
Personally, I found the essay incredibly refreshing. I love how blunt Kincaid is. Indictments like these are necessary. They can serve as wake up calls. They can relieve its writer. They can reveal the truth, or at least a side of the story that has always been suppressed. The "subaltern" finally speaks. And ya'll bitches better start listening!
Antigua and Barbuda are two islands lying between the Caribbean Sea and the Atlantic Ocean. With a combined total 440 km^2 (170 sq mi) it is a small place indeed. In 1632, Antigua was colonized through the efforts of Sir Thomas Warner who introduced slavery to the island by forcing West Africans to work on his tobacco and sugarcane plantations there. Slavery endured for over 200 years in Antigua, and was finally abolished in 1834. However, the economic condition of the former enslaved people failed to improve due to "land shortages and the universal refusal of credit". It is from these people that most of Antigua's Black (and mixed) population is descended.
Do you ever try to understand why people like me cannot get over the past, cannot forgive and forget? There is the Barclays Bank. The Barclay brothers are dead. The human beings they traded, the human beings who to them were only commodities, are dead. It should not have been that they came to the same end, and heaven is not enough of a reward for one or hell enough of a punishment for the other. People who think about these things believe that every bad deed, even every bad thought, carries with it its own retribution. So do you see the queer thing about people like me? Sometimes we hold your retribution.In A Small Place, Kincaid is highly critical of tourism and government corruption, both of which sprung up after Antigua's independence in 1981. She criticizes Antigua's dependence on tourism for its economy, and also explains how many people in office were charged with all forms of corruption.
The many examples she gives on the disparity (between the rich and the poor, the locals and the tourists, the Black/African and the white/European population) are incredibly disheartening to read about. For instance, she talks about the non-existent health care system, the low-quality hospitals, the fact that "when the Minister of Health himself doesn't feel well he takes the first plane to New York to see a real doctor" – a luxury that most of Antigua's citizens simply do not have.
Kincaid also reflects on the Queen's visit in 1985, and how "when the queen came, all the roads that she would travel on were paced anew, so that she would have been left with the impression that riding in a car in Antigua was a pleasant experience." It is examples like these that make me lose my faith in humanity. Sadly, it also reminded me of Petina Gappah's An Elegy for the Easterly, in which she described how Zimbabwe's shanty towns were forcibly cleared for the Queen's visit in 2005, which affected over 700.000 Zimbabweans directly through loss of their homes or livelihood. It is all the more frustrating that the West (Great Britain especially since these actions were prompted by the Queen's visit) did not take the appropriate measures.
In the first section, Kincaid employs the perspective of the tourist in order to demonstrate the inherent escapism in creating a distance from the realities of a visited place. She dissects a tourist's psyche by depicting how tourists create separation by othering the locale and the individuals that inhabit it. Kincaid also explores the various reasons why tourists are such a deep source of resentment for Antiguans.
Every native would like to find a way out, every native would like a rest, every native would like a tour. But some natives—most natives in the world—cannot go anywhere. They are too poor. They are too poor to go anywhere. They are too poor to escape the reality of their lives; and they are too poor to live properly in the place they live, which is the very place you, the tourist, want to go—so when the natives see you, the tourist, they envy you, they envy your ability to leave your own banality and boredom, they envy your ability to turn their own banality and boredom into a source of pleasure for yourself.Kincaid does a great job at showing that this "envy" doesn't come from the fact that Antiguans don't have the means to leave, but that the tourism industry in and out of itself is very reason why Antiguans are exploited and this disparity exists.
The tourism industry is linked to a global economic system that ultimately does not translate into benefits for the very Antiguans who enable it. The tourist may experience the beauty on the surface of Antigua while being wholly ignorant of the actual political and social conditions that the Antiguan tourism industry epitomizes. Thereby, the tourism industry reinforces an exploitative power structure, which is something that the tourists themselves choose to ignore. In consequence, the tourism industry recolonizes Antigua by placing locals at a disenfranchised and subservient position in a global economic system that ultimately does not serve them.
Do you know why people like me are shy about being capitalists? Well, its because we, for as long as we have known you, were capital, like bales of cotton and sacks of sugar, and you were commanding, cruel capitalists, and the memory of this so strong, the experience so recent, that we can't quite bring ourselves to embrace this idea that you think so much of.While Kincaid expresses anger towards slavery, colonialism and the broken Antiguan identity that it has left in its wake, she avoids retreating to simple racialization in order to explain the past and present, for doing so would further "other" an already marginalized group of people. Instead, Kincaid sheds light on the oppressive hierarchical structures of colonialism, which is still evident in the learned power structures of present-day, post-colonial Antigua.
All in all, A Small Place is a wonderful, eye-opening book that I'd highly recommend. I definitely wish it was longer and dove a little bit deeper into Antigua's history (colonial and pre-colonial) but other than that I am more than satisfied!
October 13, 2020
Holding Retribution
African slavery has produced an inestimable amount of suffering in the world, not only in the past but also as a legacy which just keeps on giving. It continues to humiliate long after it has ceased to incarcerate. Often in the most subtle, and therefore profound, ways, slavery continues to repress and to kill.
Jamaica Kincaid’s bio-rant is a catalogue of the residue of slavery in Antiqua - and in the Caribbean and the Americas more generally. What remains from the formal ownership of people by other people is a commercial dominance symbolised most forcefully by tourism. The tourist is the modern liberal, middle-class slave-owner. “A tourist is an ugly human being.” The tourist is hated by the people he exploits just as the slave-owner was hated by the same people.
Like his predecessors, the modern owner lives elsewhere - in Europe and North America- and has his gang-bosses ensure the work gets done. The minor organisational innovation is that the bosses are now black rather than white and are called politicians. But the slaves are still tied to the place, unable to move; and they’re still the servants, and field-hands in their own country. Or rather in the country to which they were transported:
But there is an oddity here. Kincaid hints at it when she says, “We felt superior, for we were so much better behaved and we were full of grace, and these people were so badly behaved and they were so completely empty of grace.” The island of Antigua is a very religious place. Its density of Moravian, Baptist, Independent Evangelical, Pentecostal, Adventist, Christadelphian, Methodist, and Anglican churches is remarkable. Christianity dominates the culture of the island.
And yet Christianity is also the clearest remaining component of the colonial past. Christianity justified the very slavery that caused the African presence on the island. Missionaries were just another fact of the colonial regime. Indeed the colonists were ‘badly behaved’ but was that because or despite their religious sentiments? And is the interpretation given to Christianity by the Antiguans, and other colonised people, superior or simply more naive than that of their former masters? Is this Christianity an example of Nietzsche’s slave-mentality, a way to exercise dominance without undue (and inefficient) violence?
Christianity, as a remnant of salve-owning colonialism, has an interesting political effect. It is often, as in Antigua, shared by an entire population. Its claim for the existence of ‘another world’ is interpreted by the elite as a justification to exploit this one. And, simultaneously, it is interpreted by the exploited as a reason for hope. Christianity thus forms an ideal basis for a culture of continuing slavery. Perhaps Nietzsche wasn’t overstating his case.
African slavery has produced an inestimable amount of suffering in the world, not only in the past but also as a legacy which just keeps on giving. It continues to humiliate long after it has ceased to incarcerate. Often in the most subtle, and therefore profound, ways, slavery continues to repress and to kill.
Jamaica Kincaid’s bio-rant is a catalogue of the residue of slavery in Antiqua - and in the Caribbean and the Americas more generally. What remains from the formal ownership of people by other people is a commercial dominance symbolised most forcefully by tourism. The tourist is the modern liberal, middle-class slave-owner. “A tourist is an ugly human being.” The tourist is hated by the people he exploits just as the slave-owner was hated by the same people.
Like his predecessors, the modern owner lives elsewhere - in Europe and North America- and has his gang-bosses ensure the work gets done. The minor organisational innovation is that the bosses are now black rather than white and are called politicians. But the slaves are still tied to the place, unable to move; and they’re still the servants, and field-hands in their own country. Or rather in the country to which they were transported:
“What I see is the millions of people, of whom I am just one, made orphans: no motherland, no fatherland, no gods, no mounds of earth for holy ground, no excess of love which might lead to the things that an excess of love sometimes brings, and worst and most painful of all, no tongue. (For isn’t it odd that the only language I have in which to speak of this crime is the language of the criminal who committed the crime?)”
But there is an oddity here. Kincaid hints at it when she says, “We felt superior, for we were so much better behaved and we were full of grace, and these people were so badly behaved and they were so completely empty of grace.” The island of Antigua is a very religious place. Its density of Moravian, Baptist, Independent Evangelical, Pentecostal, Adventist, Christadelphian, Methodist, and Anglican churches is remarkable. Christianity dominates the culture of the island.
And yet Christianity is also the clearest remaining component of the colonial past. Christianity justified the very slavery that caused the African presence on the island. Missionaries were just another fact of the colonial regime. Indeed the colonists were ‘badly behaved’ but was that because or despite their religious sentiments? And is the interpretation given to Christianity by the Antiguans, and other colonised people, superior or simply more naive than that of their former masters? Is this Christianity an example of Nietzsche’s slave-mentality, a way to exercise dominance without undue (and inefficient) violence?
Christianity, as a remnant of salve-owning colonialism, has an interesting political effect. It is often, as in Antigua, shared by an entire population. Its claim for the existence of ‘another world’ is interpreted by the elite as a justification to exploit this one. And, simultaneously, it is interpreted by the exploited as a reason for hope. Christianity thus forms an ideal basis for a culture of continuing slavery. Perhaps Nietzsche wasn’t overstating his case.
November 29, 2017
A powerful, albeit short essay by an author who generally tells it like it is, whether fictional or as in this case, not. As a visitor, you travel to a beautiful place. What do you see? Palm trees, blue oceans, friendly people, see the things, visit the sites that all visitors do. Do you, however look beneath the surface? In this essay, Ward takes us on a little journey, uncovering not only the history of this country, Antigua, but showing us the things that are hidden. Mainly how colonization has changed this beautiful place, and not for the better. What is has done to the people as a whole. The effects of tourism on the same. The difference between what a tourist sees and what is reality for many of the people on this island is jarring.
May 2, 2019
At once acerbic and affecting, A Small Place sketches a nuanced portrait of the Antiguan author’s homeland. Subverting the conventions of the guidebook, the slim essay is ostensibly addressed to Western tourists seeking to learn more about Antigua. In precise prose, Kincaid eviscerates the island’s corrupt government, recounts a brutal history of British colonization, and lambasts Americans and Europeans who would make the land their playground. As sardonic as the author can be, she also pays homage to Antigua’s stunning natural beauty and the “innocence, art, and lunacy” of its people. Kincaid’s voice is compelling, swiftly alternating between rage and empathy, and the essay offers an insightful look at the long-lasting legacy of Western exploitation upon a small place like Antigua.
November 4, 2007
A poignant read for a book in concentrate (i.e. it's a short book, but it packs a brilliant punch). I used to own a copy until I was sitting in an airport one day and "befriended" a happy WASP family on their way home from a Carribean cruise. It was an enjoyable conversation until the mom started spewing some ignorant comments about the 'exotic' beauty of the places they had visited (including Antigua) and then decided I should have some Jesus pamphlet. I thought: if she thinks I'll benefit from this, I have something I think she would benefit from as well. So we swapped readings: I took her "the end is near, be saved by a conservative, repressive, fear-inducing interpretation of Jesus/God" and handed her my sacred possession. If you don't read the book, at least read the first couple of pages imagining you have just returned from vacation to the island and had no idea about its history. It may seem a bit mean, but I thought of it as an enlightening opportunity. Tough love. It was a proud moment.
April 23, 2020
A Small Place is Jamaica Kincaid's scathing and brilliant indictment of colonialism and neo-colonialism in the form of tourism in her home of Antigua.
I picked this one up because I wanted something thought-provoking and short and WOW. All written in second-person plural, Kincaid is speaking directly to you... to each of us.
80 pages later, and that was the razor-sharp, trenchant essay I didn't even know I needed.
Highly recommended.
I picked this one up because I wanted something thought-provoking and short and WOW. All written in second-person plural, Kincaid is speaking directly to you... to each of us.
80 pages later, and that was the razor-sharp, trenchant essay I didn't even know I needed.
Highly recommended.
February 5, 2022
Thought-provoking. I'm not sure if I agreed with her on everything, but she made many excellent points, and made them well. Written about thirty years ago (perhaps more?) I wonder if she feels the same today? Has the situation changed, and if so, for better or worse?
January 12, 2018
This is a blistering and wholly accurrate look at colonialism. I'm not surprised that some reviewers comment on her angry tone. Her anger is justified and validated in her writing. We are just accustomed to seeing colonialism as a benefit to the world rather than the horror it was.
Damn is this good.
Damn is this good.
January 31, 2022
Malo je mesto, mala je i knjiga, a tema okean.
Džamajka Kinkejd je u jednom intervjuu rekla kako piše tako da svi budu makar malo manje zadovoljni nego što su bili. I u pravu je – izvesno iritirajuće sneveseljavanje je zagarantovano. A malo ko bi to rekao kad se susretne sa kristalno jasnim rečenicama i duhovitim, pa čak i razdraganim pripovednim tonom. Sve deluje savršeno naivno, čak i pojednostavljujuće, ali iza te fasade nema šta nema. Lukavo je to pakovanje, jer nema koga u ovoj knjizi Kinkejd nije, na ovaj ili onaj način, potkačila, ali tako da će se malo ko pronaći čak i u neposrednim optužbama. Doduše, ne treba prenebregnuti da je ona mogla da o svojoj rodnoj Antigvi piše bespoštedno tek van nje, ali sa druge strane, da nije živela u SAD, pitanje je da li bi uopšte njena priča i mogla da dopre to ostatka sveta.
Ali ostaviću to trenutno po strani, iako tema nije uopšte beznačajna. Kinkejd piše vešto i izrazito nenakinđureno. Dobra joj je jezička ekonomija – nema repova i nema rasipanja. I uprkos tome što je u pitanju esej, čita se kao sasvim kratak roman, u kome je glavni junak upravo sama Antigva i njena postkolonijalna sudbina. Antigva, kao i mnoga karipska ostrva, jeste raj, ali raj nikad nije raj svojim žiteljima, već samo putnicima. Kritička oštrica uperena prema turizmu je ovde izvrsna; otvorivši svoju knjigu pripovedanjem u drugom licu, odnosno, obraćanjem hipotetičkom drugom, Kinkejd mapira ključne segmente susreta putnika sa ovom ostrvskom zemljom, pokazujući kako se vizura groteskno izobličuje. Postepeno, a sa lakoćom uporedivom sa slušanjem uzbudljivih sagovornika, povećava teret. Antigva od božanstvene destinacije postaje prostor suštinski određen svojom kolonijalnom prošlošću i sadašnjošću. Dok nacionalna biblioteka oštećena u zemljotresu ne može da se renovira više od decenije, najvažnija ostrvska banka, koja je, inače, produžetak nekadašnje kompanije za trgovinu robljem, samo nastavlja da umnožava kapital. Antigva ima zdravstvenu zaštitu (tri lekara), a sam ministar zdravlja bi prvim avionom otišao za Njujork, ako mu nešto, daleko bilo, fali. Antigva ima vojsku, ali ta vojska je u najboljem slučaju ukras za usputna događanja. Antigva je, nažalost, nedovršen državni i društveni projekat, o kome, kao što je to inače slučaj sa malim, ostrvrskim zemljama, ni ne razmišljamo kao o samostalnim entitetima, a, istini za volju, čini se da ni njihove državne strukture ne razmišljaju na taj način.
Otkud sve ovo? Odgovor je jasan da jasniji ne može biti – količina nepočinstava koju su Englezi učinili planeti je s malo čim uporediva. Međutim, vrlo je zanimljivo kako je ova knjiga imala daleko bolju recepciju u inostranstvu, nego u autorkinoj rodnoj zemlji. Za karipske intelektualce, Kinkejd je autošovinista i neko ko zarađuje poene na pljuvanju svoje zemlje, dok je za Amerikance ona ili interesantan glas ili postkolonijalna muljatorka. Ali svi tu donekle greše – jer ovo delo nije dobro samo zbog angažovanosti i dobro postavljenih pitanja, već i zbog dovitljivosti i dobre forme koja sadrži u sebi nešto neočekivano univerzalno.
S tim u vezi, osim političke dimenzije dela, nimalo manja nisu značajna razmatranja vezana za malu sredinu. Šansa da je Kinkejd čula za Radomira Konstantinovića je maltene nepostojeća, ali krajnje je interesantno da su im neka razmišljanja identična. Koga zanima može uporediti šta ovde, a šta u „Filozofiji palanke” piše o tome kako mala sredina doživljava protok vremena.
Međutim, hronotop Antigve je samo jednim svojim delom palanački, ona je i utopija (ne-mesto) i distopija i heterotopija i svet-u-malom i mesto-van-sveta. Tačkica ispod mrvice kolača na karti sveta, raj i pakao.
(I da, neodoljivo me je cela ova knjiga podsetila na igricu Tropico. Ko ne zna, u pitanju je strategija u kojoj je igrač u ulozi apsolutnog vladara jednog ostrva, kojim može da upravlja kako mu se prohte. Postoje različita uređenja i mogućnosti upravljanja ostrvom – od vojne hunte do vlasti ekologa. Moguće je otvaranje arheoloških nalazišta, crkava, nacionalnih parkova, ali i politička ubistva, kupovina glasova i lažiranje izbora. Sve što jedna diktatorska duša ište.)
„Malo mesto” je, sve u svemu, postkolonijalni klasik, kamenčić u cipeli i knjiga koja je otvarala i koja će tek otvarati polemike. Takođe i dokaz da se o postkolonijalnim temama može sjajno pisati na način različit od Kucijeve satiruće oporosti. (Da ne bude nejasno, Kuciju svaka čast, to je pisac i po, ali može da baci nekad i zračak svetla. Svetlo može da bude nekad i ubojitije od mraka.)
Džamajka Kinkejd je u jednom intervjuu rekla kako piše tako da svi budu makar malo manje zadovoljni nego što su bili. I u pravu je – izvesno iritirajuće sneveseljavanje je zagarantovano. A malo ko bi to rekao kad se susretne sa kristalno jasnim rečenicama i duhovitim, pa čak i razdraganim pripovednim tonom. Sve deluje savršeno naivno, čak i pojednostavljujuće, ali iza te fasade nema šta nema. Lukavo je to pakovanje, jer nema koga u ovoj knjizi Kinkejd nije, na ovaj ili onaj način, potkačila, ali tako da će se malo ko pronaći čak i u neposrednim optužbama. Doduše, ne treba prenebregnuti da je ona mogla da o svojoj rodnoj Antigvi piše bespoštedno tek van nje, ali sa druge strane, da nije živela u SAD, pitanje je da li bi uopšte njena priča i mogla da dopre to ostatka sveta.
Ali ostaviću to trenutno po strani, iako tema nije uopšte beznačajna. Kinkejd piše vešto i izrazito nenakinđureno. Dobra joj je jezička ekonomija – nema repova i nema rasipanja. I uprkos tome što je u pitanju esej, čita se kao sasvim kratak roman, u kome je glavni junak upravo sama Antigva i njena postkolonijalna sudbina. Antigva, kao i mnoga karipska ostrva, jeste raj, ali raj nikad nije raj svojim žiteljima, već samo putnicima. Kritička oštrica uperena prema turizmu je ovde izvrsna; otvorivši svoju knjigu pripovedanjem u drugom licu, odnosno, obraćanjem hipotetičkom drugom, Kinkejd mapira ključne segmente susreta putnika sa ovom ostrvskom zemljom, pokazujući kako se vizura groteskno izobličuje. Postepeno, a sa lakoćom uporedivom sa slušanjem uzbudljivih sagovornika, povećava teret. Antigva od božanstvene destinacije postaje prostor suštinski određen svojom kolonijalnom prošlošću i sadašnjošću. Dok nacionalna biblioteka oštećena u zemljotresu ne može da se renovira više od decenije, najvažnija ostrvska banka, koja je, inače, produžetak nekadašnje kompanije za trgovinu robljem, samo nastavlja da umnožava kapital. Antigva ima zdravstvenu zaštitu (tri lekara), a sam ministar zdravlja bi prvim avionom otišao za Njujork, ako mu nešto, daleko bilo, fali. Antigva ima vojsku, ali ta vojska je u najboljem slučaju ukras za usputna događanja. Antigva je, nažalost, nedovršen državni i društveni projekat, o kome, kao što je to inače slučaj sa malim, ostrvrskim zemljama, ni ne razmišljamo kao o samostalnim entitetima, a, istini za volju, čini se da ni njihove državne strukture ne razmišljaju na taj način.
Otkud sve ovo? Odgovor je jasan da jasniji ne može biti – količina nepočinstava koju su Englezi učinili planeti je s malo čim uporediva. Međutim, vrlo je zanimljivo kako je ova knjiga imala daleko bolju recepciju u inostranstvu, nego u autorkinoj rodnoj zemlji. Za karipske intelektualce, Kinkejd je autošovinista i neko ko zarađuje poene na pljuvanju svoje zemlje, dok je za Amerikance ona ili interesantan glas ili postkolonijalna muljatorka. Ali svi tu donekle greše – jer ovo delo nije dobro samo zbog angažovanosti i dobro postavljenih pitanja, već i zbog dovitljivosti i dobre forme koja sadrži u sebi nešto neočekivano univerzalno.
S tim u vezi, osim političke dimenzije dela, nimalo manja nisu značajna razmatranja vezana za malu sredinu. Šansa da je Kinkejd čula za Radomira Konstantinovića je maltene nepostojeća, ali krajnje je interesantno da su im neka razmišljanja identična. Koga zanima može uporediti šta ovde, a šta u „Filozofiji palanke” piše o tome kako mala sredina doživljava protok vremena.
Međutim, hronotop Antigve je samo jednim svojim delom palanački, ona je i utopija (ne-mesto) i distopija i heterotopija i svet-u-malom i mesto-van-sveta. Tačkica ispod mrvice kolača na karti sveta, raj i pakao.
(I da, neodoljivo me je cela ova knjiga podsetila na igricu Tropico. Ko ne zna, u pitanju je strategija u kojoj je igrač u ulozi apsolutnog vladara jednog ostrva, kojim može da upravlja kako mu se prohte. Postoje različita uređenja i mogućnosti upravljanja ostrvom – od vojne hunte do vlasti ekologa. Moguće je otvaranje arheoloških nalazišta, crkava, nacionalnih parkova, ali i politička ubistva, kupovina glasova i lažiranje izbora. Sve što jedna diktatorska duša ište.)
„Malo mesto” je, sve u svemu, postkolonijalni klasik, kamenčić u cipeli i knjiga koja je otvarala i koja će tek otvarati polemike. Takođe i dokaz da se o postkolonijalnim temama može sjajno pisati na način različit od Kucijeve satiruće oporosti. (Da ne bude nejasno, Kuciju svaka čast, to je pisac i po, ali može da baci nekad i zračak svetla. Svetlo može da bude nekad i ubojitije od mraka.)
February 10, 2017
Four short autobiographical essays, anti-travel, Jamaica Kincaid at her most provocative. The first essay is quite brilliant, especially as it is written in the second person, you, you, you, thus deliberately embedded with an accusatory tone.
Jamaica Kincaid has been away from Antigua for some years and is seeing it with new eyes when she returns, she describes the ugly, despicable tourist as someone we become when we leave home, how we are despised by locals everywhere. Her essay summed up in this quote:
She speaks of the old Antigua she remembers, named, built, run by the badly behaved English who imposed their ways and built things that would exclude locals or take from them, she removes all politeness and false exteriors and says the things that nobody ever says, let alone puts them into print.
The new Antigua, self-ruled, run by corrupt yet elected rulers, all of whom have had US green cards and most with Swiss bank accounts, each foreign investment has a suspect story attached to it.
Though short and something of a rant, I recognise the familiarity of Kincaid's rhythmic style of language, it pulses with energy and power and sometimes overflows, capturing that passionate anger for the state of her ancestral home.
Jamaica Kincaid has been away from Antigua for some years and is seeing it with new eyes when she returns, she describes the ugly, despicable tourist as someone we become when we leave home, how we are despised by locals everywhere. Her essay summed up in this quote:
"That the native does not like the tourist is not hard to explain. For every native of every place is a potential tourist, and every tourist is a native of somewhere. Every native everywhere lives a life of overwhelming and crushing banality and boredom and desperation and depression, and every deed, good and bad, is an attempt to forget this. Every native would like to find a way out, every native would like a rest, every native would like a tour. But some natives—most natives in the world—cannot go anywhere. They are too poor. They are too poor to go anywhere. They are too poor to escape the reality of their lives; and they are too poor to live properly in the place they live, which is the very place you, the tourist, want to go—so when the natives see you, the tourist, they envy you, they envy your ability to leave your own banality and boredom, they envy your ability to turn their own banality and boredom into a source of pleasure for yourself.”
She speaks of the old Antigua she remembers, named, built, run by the badly behaved English who imposed their ways and built things that would exclude locals or take from them, she removes all politeness and false exteriors and says the things that nobody ever says, let alone puts them into print.
The new Antigua, self-ruled, run by corrupt yet elected rulers, all of whom have had US green cards and most with Swiss bank accounts, each foreign investment has a suspect story attached to it.
"It is just a little island, the unreal way in which it is beautiful now, is the unreal way in which it was always beautiful. The unreal way in which it is beautiful now that they are a free people, is the unreal way in which it was beautiful when they were slaves."
Though short and something of a rant, I recognise the familiarity of Kincaid's rhythmic style of language, it pulses with energy and power and sometimes overflows, capturing that passionate anger for the state of her ancestral home.
February 3, 2023
Meme Corner: I have to note that I was really taken with this book’s cover painting, The Charmer by Robert Hogfeldt. It’s a perfect visual introduction to Kincaid’s arguments, and it pairs well with her tone. Today’s first and second memes are straight from the bowels of Clubhouse, my new social media addiction. Clubhouse is a perfect auditory introduction to Black Twitter’s arguments, and it pairs well with bouts of doom scrolling.
My friend Ambar told me about this book a few weeks ago, when we were having a discussion about Black land loss in the U.S. South, and how this loss is heightened in areas with major tourism economies. After the Twitter and Clubhouse debates surrounding this weekend’s thread of controversy, it seemed like a perfect time to make good on my library hold. (For context in case you don’t want to read the article, the debate was essentially about the ethics of a Black queer woman selling an ebook with guidance on how people could “find paradise” by becoming “digital nomads” in Bali, as she and her girlfriend have been doing for several months.)
Now to the book: given the short length of this 81-page essay, I found myself paying more attention than usual to the various stylistic choices Jamaica Kincaid made. I am IN LOVE with her cadence, and how it’s supported by an indulgent use of commas. Her sentences are so smooth and well-paced, even when they’re long—they’re less “run on”, more like “please, go on.” As someone who supports the Oxford comma and all its friends, it was a huge fan of Kincaid’s refined approach (I typically wield commas in less graceful service of my own verbosity.) There are also many second-person sections in this essay, where the “you” is a nondescript white tourist from the imperial core. In A Small Place, this tourist receives the field guide of a lifetime on how (not) to visit the author’s home of Antigua.
Kincaid begins the narrative by guiding the tourist through the physical manifestations of the oppressive tourism economy they are supporting in their trip to her home country. These manifestations are hidden in plain sight by complicit Antiguan leaders, all so the tourists don’t have to “let that slightly funny feeling you have from time to time about exploitation, oppression, domination develop into full-fledged unease, discomfort; you could ruin your holiday.” This could not be more timely for 2021, when we are both suckers for escapism and guilt-ridden by Kincaid’s notion of the tourist as “an ugly human being.” I think the Bali example sparked so much debate because many people felt the e-book peddlers had a distinct right to their paradise fantasies, as they were escaping not just drudgery of a large place, but also their oppression in the U.S. as Black lesbians. Many Americans (primarily White and wealthy) have claimed they too have a “right to escape” the coronavirus by moving to less populated areas, many of which are domestic and international hotspots for tourism. A Small Place poses a universal question for people of any race who have the resources to become tourists: do we have the right to “escape” at the expense of contributing to other people’s oppression?
One challenging component of truly reckoning with this question is that of language: we are trying to discuss how Black Americans can contribute to “the horror of the deed” (neocolonialism and neoliberalism) while using the “language of the criminal.” It makes things clunky, like I saw people asking on Clubhouse—how can queer Black women be colonizers, when we’re fleeing American oppression? We are still developing language for how even while possessing the same identity in every place you go, your power can change given the societal contexts of a new place. However, as the “digital nomad” industrial complex continues to boom, I think it’s important for Black people with the power to participate in the tourism economies to question our Travel Noire fantasies.
More thoughts: there is so much FEELING here, my God. I love Miss Susan’s review about how Kincaid’s anger makes her argument all the more incisive—by refusing the illusion of objectivity, she is able to exemplify how the enduring violence of settler colonialism mutilates the individuals living under this system. This means she can travel much further than a critique that refused to discuss how each of us have been shaped by imperialism. In a passage so good I had to quote it in three separate sets of Goodreads updates, she unravels so much: 1) how Western notions of good governance, law and order, and objectivity are inventions of racial capitalism; 2) why there is no place in “the free market” for people who used to be ON the market; and 3) where the “we were kings” narrative falls flat for many Black people who have been irreparably disconnected from our ancestral cultures and ways of being through slavery.
A Small Place made me think of so many other topics: theft of heirs’ property land in the SC Low Country and SC/GA Sea Islands, Randi K. Gill-Sadler’s article Confronting Myths of Exceptional, Black Leisure Travel: Teaching June Jordan’s “Report from the Bahamas” in the Contemporary Classroom, a quote from Toni Morrison about how paradise does not exist on this earth without the oppression of some group. (This quote is something I was thinking a lot about in my review of Akwaeke Emezi’s Pet.) Kincaid’s description of the settlers who took pleasure in “pointing out the gutter into which a self-governing—Black—Antigua had placed itself” is very similar to many people’s opinions of U.S. municipalities with majority Black populations and leadership. Once more, this “language of the criminal” renders oppression inconsequential, so that settler colonial states become the standard for proper governance, and chocolate cities become the predominant instances of corruption. You also can’t miss the many parallels to gentrification: when Kincaid describes the towering presence of the Barclays Bank in Antigua’s central business district, and how the original Barclays Brothers made their wealth through slave trading, it calls to mind the Barclays Stadium in Brooklyn, and its contribution to the gentrification of Black communities with roots in the Caribbean. This is a place I think I’ll continue to reflect upon: how does modern settler colonialism necessitate tourist economies, and how do tourist economies exacerbate gentrification in American cities? How do gentrifiers become resident-tourists, with the means to “escape” life in the suburbs while ignoring those who are displaced to create this “urban paradise”?
As many of y’all know, this last point is super relevant to my current field of work, urban and regional planning. As I continue to learn about racial capitalism in housing and the real estate state, I am questioning whether it’s even possible to substantively resist these market-driven systems while working as a planner. However, A Small Place indicates how my other professional interests (archival work) are by no means separated from the legacy of colonial violence: “You loved knowledge, and wherever you went you made sure to build a school, a library (yes, and in both of these places you distorted or erased my history and glorified your own.)” In short, working to resist the exploitation of oppressed people, false notions of objectivity, and revisionist histories will follow me in every occupation!
My unanswered questions: how does Kincaid’s “native or tourist” binary apply to Black people in the U.S., who have been theorized as a neoindigenous people? As an NC resident who is the descendant of enslaved North Carolinians, and whose family hopes to build a reunion center on the land our ancestors have stewarded and owned for decades, I need to find out more about agritourism, land sovereignty, and who exactly is Indigenous. This means I want to keep learning about the experiences and freedom struggles of Black Native people in my country, such as the Choctaw & Chickasaw Freedmen, whose ancestors were property of the Five Slaveholding Tribes, orthe Lumbee people here in the Carolinas (I’m hoping to get more acquainted with Melissa Maynor Lowery’s work this year.) Finally, I am curious about how Kincaid’s essay should motivate us to support “natives in the world [who] are too poor to escape the reality of their lives; and they are too poor to live properly in the place where they live, which is the very place you, the tourist, want to go.” In the case of Bali debacle, people have suggested supporting the the Free West Papua campaign, as the West Papuans are Indigenous people who are being brutalized by the Indonesian government.
TLDR: read this book!!! It’s short, and structured beautifully. Kincaid is righteously angry, and this full emotion enables her to depict how structural oppression and generational trauma impact each individual in a given society. A Small Place could help you break your reading slump, and it will certainly make you think about escapism in the time of COVID, tourism’s parallels to gentrification, and settler colonialism’s enduring impact on Indigenous communities.
My friend Ambar told me about this book a few weeks ago, when we were having a discussion about Black land loss in the U.S. South, and how this loss is heightened in areas with major tourism economies. After the Twitter and Clubhouse debates surrounding this weekend’s thread of controversy, it seemed like a perfect time to make good on my library hold. (For context in case you don’t want to read the article, the debate was essentially about the ethics of a Black queer woman selling an ebook with guidance on how people could “find paradise” by becoming “digital nomads” in Bali, as she and her girlfriend have been doing for several months.)
Now to the book: given the short length of this 81-page essay, I found myself paying more attention than usual to the various stylistic choices Jamaica Kincaid made. I am IN LOVE with her cadence, and how it’s supported by an indulgent use of commas. Her sentences are so smooth and well-paced, even when they’re long—they’re less “run on”, more like “please, go on.” As someone who supports the Oxford comma and all its friends, it was a huge fan of Kincaid’s refined approach (I typically wield commas in less graceful service of my own verbosity.) There are also many second-person sections in this essay, where the “you” is a nondescript white tourist from the imperial core. In A Small Place, this tourist receives the field guide of a lifetime on how (not) to visit the author’s home of Antigua.
Kincaid begins the narrative by guiding the tourist through the physical manifestations of the oppressive tourism economy they are supporting in their trip to her home country. These manifestations are hidden in plain sight by complicit Antiguan leaders, all so the tourists don’t have to “let that slightly funny feeling you have from time to time about exploitation, oppression, domination develop into full-fledged unease, discomfort; you could ruin your holiday.” This could not be more timely for 2021, when we are both suckers for escapism and guilt-ridden by Kincaid’s notion of the tourist as “an ugly human being.” I think the Bali example sparked so much debate because many people felt the e-book peddlers had a distinct right to their paradise fantasies, as they were escaping not just drudgery of a large place, but also their oppression in the U.S. as Black lesbians. Many Americans (primarily White and wealthy) have claimed they too have a “right to escape” the coronavirus by moving to less populated areas, many of which are domestic and international hotspots for tourism. A Small Place poses a universal question for people of any race who have the resources to become tourists: do we have the right to “escape” at the expense of contributing to other people’s oppression?
One challenging component of truly reckoning with this question is that of language: we are trying to discuss how Black Americans can contribute to “the horror of the deed” (neocolonialism and neoliberalism) while using the “language of the criminal.” It makes things clunky, like I saw people asking on Clubhouse—how can queer Black women be colonizers, when we’re fleeing American oppression? We are still developing language for how even while possessing the same identity in every place you go, your power can change given the societal contexts of a new place. However, as the “digital nomad” industrial complex continues to boom, I think it’s important for Black people with the power to participate in the tourism economies to question our Travel Noire fantasies.
More thoughts: there is so much FEELING here, my God. I love Miss Susan’s review about how Kincaid’s anger makes her argument all the more incisive—by refusing the illusion of objectivity, she is able to exemplify how the enduring violence of settler colonialism mutilates the individuals living under this system. This means she can travel much further than a critique that refused to discuss how each of us have been shaped by imperialism. In a passage so good I had to quote it in three separate sets of Goodreads updates, she unravels so much: 1) how Western notions of good governance, law and order, and objectivity are inventions of racial capitalism; 2) why there is no place in “the free market” for people who used to be ON the market; and 3) where the “we were kings” narrative falls flat for many Black people who have been irreparably disconnected from our ancestral cultures and ways of being through slavery.
A Small Place made me think of so many other topics: theft of heirs’ property land in the SC Low Country and SC/GA Sea Islands, Randi K. Gill-Sadler’s article Confronting Myths of Exceptional, Black Leisure Travel: Teaching June Jordan’s “Report from the Bahamas” in the Contemporary Classroom, a quote from Toni Morrison about how paradise does not exist on this earth without the oppression of some group. (This quote is something I was thinking a lot about in my review of Akwaeke Emezi’s Pet.) Kincaid’s description of the settlers who took pleasure in “pointing out the gutter into which a self-governing—Black—Antigua had placed itself” is very similar to many people’s opinions of U.S. municipalities with majority Black populations and leadership. Once more, this “language of the criminal” renders oppression inconsequential, so that settler colonial states become the standard for proper governance, and chocolate cities become the predominant instances of corruption. You also can’t miss the many parallels to gentrification: when Kincaid describes the towering presence of the Barclays Bank in Antigua’s central business district, and how the original Barclays Brothers made their wealth through slave trading, it calls to mind the Barclays Stadium in Brooklyn, and its contribution to the gentrification of Black communities with roots in the Caribbean. This is a place I think I’ll continue to reflect upon: how does modern settler colonialism necessitate tourist economies, and how do tourist economies exacerbate gentrification in American cities? How do gentrifiers become resident-tourists, with the means to “escape” life in the suburbs while ignoring those who are displaced to create this “urban paradise”?
As many of y’all know, this last point is super relevant to my current field of work, urban and regional planning. As I continue to learn about racial capitalism in housing and the real estate state, I am questioning whether it’s even possible to substantively resist these market-driven systems while working as a planner. However, A Small Place indicates how my other professional interests (archival work) are by no means separated from the legacy of colonial violence: “You loved knowledge, and wherever you went you made sure to build a school, a library (yes, and in both of these places you distorted or erased my history and glorified your own.)” In short, working to resist the exploitation of oppressed people, false notions of objectivity, and revisionist histories will follow me in every occupation!
My unanswered questions: how does Kincaid’s “native or tourist” binary apply to Black people in the U.S., who have been theorized as a neoindigenous people? As an NC resident who is the descendant of enslaved North Carolinians, and whose family hopes to build a reunion center on the land our ancestors have stewarded and owned for decades, I need to find out more about agritourism, land sovereignty, and who exactly is Indigenous. This means I want to keep learning about the experiences and freedom struggles of Black Native people in my country, such as the Choctaw & Chickasaw Freedmen, whose ancestors were property of the Five Slaveholding Tribes, orthe Lumbee people here in the Carolinas (I’m hoping to get more acquainted with Melissa Maynor Lowery’s work this year.) Finally, I am curious about how Kincaid’s essay should motivate us to support “natives in the world [who] are too poor to escape the reality of their lives; and they are too poor to live properly in the place where they live, which is the very place you, the tourist, want to go.” In the case of Bali debacle, people have suggested supporting the the Free West Papua campaign, as the West Papuans are Indigenous people who are being brutalized by the Indonesian government.
TLDR: read this book!!! It’s short, and structured beautifully. Kincaid is righteously angry, and this full emotion enables her to depict how structural oppression and generational trauma impact each individual in a given society. A Small Place could help you break your reading slump, and it will certainly make you think about escapism in the time of COVID, tourism’s parallels to gentrification, and settler colonialism’s enduring impact on Indigenous communities.
March 9, 2015
Caribbean literature is something that I haven’t read very much of, but the first two Jamaica Kincaid novels I read were Annie John and Lucy and that was a little over two years ago. I thoroughly enjoyed them. So to continue my discovery of Kincaid I picked up A Small Place and devoured it in a few hours.
The first few pages surprised me because Kincaid immediately implements the reader in the story. She is speaking directly to us. Many people will feel uncomfortable and resent her accusations, but deep down inside we all know they are true. Within this tiny 81 page book, Kincaid explains the destruction and profiteering of her home, Antigua. Click the link to continue the review - http://browngirlreading.com/2015/03/0...
The first few pages surprised me because Kincaid immediately implements the reader in the story. She is speaking directly to us. Many people will feel uncomfortable and resent her accusations, but deep down inside we all know they are true. Within this tiny 81 page book, Kincaid explains the destruction and profiteering of her home, Antigua. Click the link to continue the review - http://browngirlreading.com/2015/03/0...
December 6, 2023
Confession time, gentle reader. (Of course, I confess all of the time on this site, disguised as 'reviews' so, well, bite me). I know I am self-indulgent in book reviewing, as my reviews are often rants, screams and personal ravings about my life, triggered by some incident or theme in a book I finished reading.
*I enjoy screaming so much since I had a nervous breakdown (PTSD) a few years ago. It is my main reason for attending sports events. My friends think I am excited over a home run or a touchdown, when actually I am really just screaming to vocalize my generalized rage and frustration over how things are with me. It never grows old - for me.*
So, maybe it takes one to know one. Jamaica Kincaid's 'A Small Place' seems to me to be a scream of rage and frustration over her past and because of the intentionally created decrepitude and degradation of Antigua. Like me, she has good reasons to scream in rage. Perhaps her heightened sense of unending injustice is more noble than mine, idk, too, as her agony is about the overall legacy of slavery rather than a subset like mine of child abuse or gender inequality. She certainly writes better than I can.
'A Small Place' is about the effects a past of racist colonialism had on her home, the Caribbean island of Antigua, and the current ongoing corruption from catering to an amoral tourist industry since independence from England. It is a very personal non-fiction essay and memoir, written with no filter or pretense of fairness or any academic distance. Kincaid remembers Antigua as it was when she was a child, but I think it still today must be basically the way she remembered it in this book, if even more so.
A link to Wikipedia article about Antigua:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antigua
A link to a Wikipedia article about Jamaica Kincaid:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamai...
This is a link to a YouTube video, an interview Kincaid gave to Time Magazine:
https://youtu.be/YdHPZMfSOx8
Frankly, I suspect she feels about the acts of being positive and hopeful about the future similar as me. It is difficult given the evidence of history and personal experience. Angst and rage are easier to tap, at least for me. Some people are motivators, others of us can only speak to what we have witnessed.
From her book, some of the emotional injuries and psychic scarring she indicates she received as a child was from the everyday casual and sneaky racism. As a child, she innocently embraced the racist education she received in her school and in her dealings with store clerks, government officials and in social activities. Later, when she learned or realized some of the compliments and comments directed at her were racist insults, I think she was doubly hurt: 1. The unjust racism; 2. The humiliation of discovery that she was cruelly tricked and scammed intentionally into an intellectual being lesser than what she was actually capable of. The worst of what happened was learning years later how she was disrespected and held back, too late now for confrontation and self-defense other than her essays and books of fiction.
I think it was the shock of the discovery how much of her earnest seeking to educate and improve herself as a young girl, which white authority figures satisfied by giving her an education saturated with secret racist jokes and imperialist ideas, which has permanently maimed her. The discovery that she was being educated to be a second-class person, not just a good server, burned her soul. The Hotel Training School, a 'respected' Antiguan institution, in particular symbolizes the harm of ignorance and the legacy of colonialism to Kincaid. I think she sees it as servility being sold as a virtue and a worthy ambition to Antiguans. It is intentional social engineering by elites through an education that hobbles the mind. Worse, the elites are now the corrupt native-born Antiguan politicians who took charge after the English left. She isn't wrong, in my opinion.
Education, a real unadulterated education, whether from a good teacher, or one that is accidentally discovered while alone in the history stacks of a good library when one was aimlessly seeking only an entertainment read, or learned from an overheard conversation of adults who lived through a history which is now being suppressed in schools, can be a mental explosion! How well I grok this, gentle reader.
I wanted to like this book better than I did. However historically informative and a good intelligent rant ‘A Small Place’ may be, though, it sometimes needed a good editor.
*I enjoy screaming so much since I had a nervous breakdown (PTSD) a few years ago. It is my main reason for attending sports events. My friends think I am excited over a home run or a touchdown, when actually I am really just screaming to vocalize my generalized rage and frustration over how things are with me. It never grows old - for me.*
So, maybe it takes one to know one. Jamaica Kincaid's 'A Small Place' seems to me to be a scream of rage and frustration over her past and because of the intentionally created decrepitude and degradation of Antigua. Like me, she has good reasons to scream in rage. Perhaps her heightened sense of unending injustice is more noble than mine, idk, too, as her agony is about the overall legacy of slavery rather than a subset like mine of child abuse or gender inequality. She certainly writes better than I can.
'A Small Place' is about the effects a past of racist colonialism had on her home, the Caribbean island of Antigua, and the current ongoing corruption from catering to an amoral tourist industry since independence from England. It is a very personal non-fiction essay and memoir, written with no filter or pretense of fairness or any academic distance. Kincaid remembers Antigua as it was when she was a child, but I think it still today must be basically the way she remembered it in this book, if even more so.
A link to Wikipedia article about Antigua:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antigua
A link to a Wikipedia article about Jamaica Kincaid:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamai...
This is a link to a YouTube video, an interview Kincaid gave to Time Magazine:
https://youtu.be/YdHPZMfSOx8
Frankly, I suspect she feels about the acts of being positive and hopeful about the future similar as me. It is difficult given the evidence of history and personal experience. Angst and rage are easier to tap, at least for me. Some people are motivators, others of us can only speak to what we have witnessed.
From her book, some of the emotional injuries and psychic scarring she indicates she received as a child was from the everyday casual and sneaky racism. As a child, she innocently embraced the racist education she received in her school and in her dealings with store clerks, government officials and in social activities. Later, when she learned or realized some of the compliments and comments directed at her were racist insults, I think she was doubly hurt: 1. The unjust racism; 2. The humiliation of discovery that she was cruelly tricked and scammed intentionally into an intellectual being lesser than what she was actually capable of. The worst of what happened was learning years later how she was disrespected and held back, too late now for confrontation and self-defense other than her essays and books of fiction.
I think it was the shock of the discovery how much of her earnest seeking to educate and improve herself as a young girl, which white authority figures satisfied by giving her an education saturated with secret racist jokes and imperialist ideas, which has permanently maimed her. The discovery that she was being educated to be a second-class person, not just a good server, burned her soul. The Hotel Training School, a 'respected' Antiguan institution, in particular symbolizes the harm of ignorance and the legacy of colonialism to Kincaid. I think she sees it as servility being sold as a virtue and a worthy ambition to Antiguans. It is intentional social engineering by elites through an education that hobbles the mind. Worse, the elites are now the corrupt native-born Antiguan politicians who took charge after the English left. She isn't wrong, in my opinion.
Education, a real unadulterated education, whether from a good teacher, or one that is accidentally discovered while alone in the history stacks of a good library when one was aimlessly seeking only an entertainment read, or learned from an overheard conversation of adults who lived through a history which is now being suppressed in schools, can be a mental explosion! How well I grok this, gentle reader.
I wanted to like this book better than I did. However historically informative and a good intelligent rant ‘A Small Place’ may be, though, it sometimes needed a good editor.
February 26, 2024
➥ 5 Stars *:･ﾟ✧
I'd like to write a more coherent review eventually, but so far this is one of the best books I've read for university. Frankly, I'm not used to reading much non-fiction, so I don't quite know what angle to see this from a literary perspective. But what I can tell you, is that it's exceptional. Growing up in Bermuda, a small island not too dissimilar to Antigua, so many of the issues and concepts discussed by Kincaid hit me particularly hard. Of course, the major difference here is that Antigua has independence while Bermuda remains a British overseas territory.
Honestly, I knew very little of Antigua before reading Kincaid's Girl and A Small Place. Kincaid does a remarkable job of packing a punch with her concise rundown of Antiguan politics and issues. Although there is still far more to learn, I feel significantly more informed than before having read this text.
Kincaid makes clear the shared Antiguan sentiment toward tourists, slave owners, and Syrians/Lebanese, fully justified. We hear so much about poor countries being corrupt, but looking into exactly what the corruption is/was, who did it, who supported it, and who suffered from it is essential.
Kincaid is a fantastic writer and I look forward to reading more of her work. Girl is a very short (2 page) text, more focussed on girl/womanhood in an Antiguan household; 100% worth the read. And yet I definitely choose A Small Place as, in my opinion, the best of Kincaid's works that I've read. It's only 50 pages but you'll learn so much, especially if you have no previous knowledge of small islands and small island politics.
“Have you ever wondered to yourself why it is that all people like me seem to have learned from you is how to imprison and murder each other, how to govern badly, and how to take the wealth of our country and place it in Swiss bank accounts? Have you ever wondered why it is that all we seem to have learned from you is how to corrupt our societies and how to be tyrants? You will have to accept that this is mostly your fault.”
━━━━━━━━━━━ ♡ ━━━━━━━━━━━
I'd like to write a more coherent review eventually, but so far this is one of the best books I've read for university. Frankly, I'm not used to reading much non-fiction, so I don't quite know what angle to see this from a literary perspective. But what I can tell you, is that it's exceptional. Growing up in Bermuda, a small island not too dissimilar to Antigua, so many of the issues and concepts discussed by Kincaid hit me particularly hard. Of course, the major difference here is that Antigua has independence while Bermuda remains a British overseas territory.
Honestly, I knew very little of Antigua before reading Kincaid's Girl and A Small Place. Kincaid does a remarkable job of packing a punch with her concise rundown of Antiguan politics and issues. Although there is still far more to learn, I feel significantly more informed than before having read this text.
Kincaid makes clear the shared Antiguan sentiment toward tourists, slave owners, and Syrians/Lebanese, fully justified. We hear so much about poor countries being corrupt, but looking into exactly what the corruption is/was, who did it, who supported it, and who suffered from it is essential.
Kincaid is a fantastic writer and I look forward to reading more of her work. Girl is a very short (2 page) text, more focussed on girl/womanhood in an Antiguan household; 100% worth the read. And yet I definitely choose A Small Place as, in my opinion, the best of Kincaid's works that I've read. It's only 50 pages but you'll learn so much, especially if you have no previous knowledge of small islands and small island politics.
━━━━━━━━━━━ ♡ ━━━━━━━━━━━
July 29, 2020
A Small Place is several small essays written by Kincaid. From the first sentence, Kincaid had my full attention. Her writing style is powerful and angry but also poetic. She has such a literary voice and it's hard not to listen.
In essence, she describes the implications of the British colonization and slave trade. She goes into the depth of the damage, the loss of language and culture, of independence and freedom. Even after the British departed, Antigua was left with the remains of colonialism, from the influence in schools to corruption to the influx of Western tourists.
On one hand, I found that I related to some of what she writes. I get irritated very quickly by Europeans and Americans who come to Israel for three to ten months, learn exactly four words in Hebrew and Arabic and then feel that they are experts about the conflict. There are so many of these people and I always have to try my best not to lose my temper when talking about politics with them because aghhh, you visited a settlement once, that doesn't make you a geopolitical professional, you're just talking in order to make yourself feel worldly and cosmopolitan, you don't have an actual stake in this.
However, on the other hand, I'm haunted by the idea that traveling can be harmful. I absolutely adore traveling. I'm hoping to one day see every country in the world (and ahh, before coronavirus I planned to visit every European country by the end of my degree, since I really only need one long summer trip to see Moldova, Ukraine, Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Sweden and Norway and then like another summer to visit Spain and Portugal and finish seeing the smaller countries like Andorra and Monaco). Nonetheless, as much as I love traveling, I have to acknowledge that it can be very damaging to a country.
Sure, you can steer away from voluntourism and disaster tourism, you can do your best to educate yourself about the country, you can let locals lead but still, you can't ignore the fact that your mere presence there isn't entirely positive. As a tourist, you represent something, your demands mean something and your existence means something. You are privileged, you can easily and sometimes even unknowingly end up exploiting entire nations.
Kincaid describes the way that so much of the country circles around the tourists and such tourists often don't want to face the actual country, they want the beaches and vacation. Truly, 50% of Antigua and Barbuda's GDP is tourism based. This statistic feels unbelievable because it's just such a big number and that really does mean many people will be dealing solely with tourists. This forces the country to work in a specific way.
And of course, the solution isn't to stop visiting because that would just harm the economy more. It's more complicated and layered than that. We need to listen, we need to find ways to balance out everything.
Ultimately, this book of essays is great because it feels like listening. It's a taste of what Antiguans think about the situation in their country. I think this book is applicable for the entire conversation about tourism and traveling, as well as the longtime impacts of colonialism.
What I'm Taking With Me
- I'm finally finally finally done with exam season so nothing is stopping me from reading more about Antigua!
- Kincaid is a little scary but in the best way.
- This book left me with an urge to visit and see for myself but at the same time, being gay is literally illegal and that does not make me very comfortable.
---------------------------
If you're thinking, "wow, I'm so sad I can't travel this year," this book is a fantastic read because it will make you rethink the entire tourism industry both in Antigua and in general.
Review to come!
In essence, she describes the implications of the British colonization and slave trade. She goes into the depth of the damage, the loss of language and culture, of independence and freedom. Even after the British departed, Antigua was left with the remains of colonialism, from the influence in schools to corruption to the influx of Western tourists.
On one hand, I found that I related to some of what she writes. I get irritated very quickly by Europeans and Americans who come to Israel for three to ten months, learn exactly four words in Hebrew and Arabic and then feel that they are experts about the conflict. There are so many of these people and I always have to try my best not to lose my temper when talking about politics with them because aghhh, you visited a settlement once, that doesn't make you a geopolitical professional, you're just talking in order to make yourself feel worldly and cosmopolitan, you don't have an actual stake in this.
However, on the other hand, I'm haunted by the idea that traveling can be harmful. I absolutely adore traveling. I'm hoping to one day see every country in the world (and ahh, before coronavirus I planned to visit every European country by the end of my degree, since I really only need one long summer trip to see Moldova, Ukraine, Belarus, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Sweden and Norway and then like another summer to visit Spain and Portugal and finish seeing the smaller countries like Andorra and Monaco). Nonetheless, as much as I love traveling, I have to acknowledge that it can be very damaging to a country.
Sure, you can steer away from voluntourism and disaster tourism, you can do your best to educate yourself about the country, you can let locals lead but still, you can't ignore the fact that your mere presence there isn't entirely positive. As a tourist, you represent something, your demands mean something and your existence means something. You are privileged, you can easily and sometimes even unknowingly end up exploiting entire nations.
Kincaid describes the way that so much of the country circles around the tourists and such tourists often don't want to face the actual country, they want the beaches and vacation. Truly, 50% of Antigua and Barbuda's GDP is tourism based. This statistic feels unbelievable because it's just such a big number and that really does mean many people will be dealing solely with tourists. This forces the country to work in a specific way.
And of course, the solution isn't to stop visiting because that would just harm the economy more. It's more complicated and layered than that. We need to listen, we need to find ways to balance out everything.
Ultimately, this book of essays is great because it feels like listening. It's a taste of what Antiguans think about the situation in their country. I think this book is applicable for the entire conversation about tourism and traveling, as well as the longtime impacts of colonialism.
What I'm Taking With Me
- I'm finally finally finally done with exam season so nothing is stopping me from reading more about Antigua!
- Kincaid is a little scary but in the best way.
- This book left me with an urge to visit and see for myself but at the same time, being gay is literally illegal and that does not make me very comfortable.
---------------------------
If you're thinking, "wow, I'm so sad I can't travel this year," this book is a fantastic read because it will make you rethink the entire tourism industry both in Antigua and in general.
Review to come!
September 11, 2013
Never in my life have I been so perturbed by something I read than by Jamaica Kincaid’s A Small Place. I love and hate this book at the same time. This is the kind of book that makes me uncomfortable with myself, and forces me to think about my world in a way that I don't like to admit. Maybe that’s why I lean more towards not liking this book. Maybe there is some uncomfortable deficiency within myself that she brings to the surface like an angry boil. But I don’t think that is wholly the reason. This book is beautiful, poetic, and deeply personal, but as an intellectual, I feel like it is also a work of flawed sensationalism.
Throughout the entire book, I could feel her anger. It pressed in upon me while I was reading, heavy on my chest. I think that the author’s rage is genuine, but after some reflection, I don’t like it as a literary device. Her anger and vitriol were very effective at pulling the reader in. However, it felt like listening to an angsty teenage rant. After a while, I felt as if she should calm down, apologize, and explain her point to me in a less childish way.
Furthermore, the anger and name-calling gave her work a lack of overall credibility. In particular, things like calling the English “bad-minded” were very annoying to me. You can’t just make value-based judgments about an entire group of people. Sure, colonialism and slavery were harmful. But it’s not like an entire race of people woke up one day and decided that today was the day to be evil and racist and enslave people. Things are much more complicated than that. I’m not defending slavery and racism as proper institutions. The American South is still reeling from the aftereffects of such human folly. It’s not so black and white. There are shades in between of not only people, but of the overall situation. And why should I have to feel white guilt because I am a white American tourist? Maybe it is possible to participate in tourism and still understand things about which she speaks. Maybe she should shift the blame just a bit.
Kincaid also spends a lot of time in her book talking about what has happened in her post-colonial world. She speaks of the corruption in her government. I read her rant about the awful, terrible people who have her country under complete control. And I read about how her people don’t really seem to care. Now the question is, Kincaid, What are you going to do about it? I suppose writing an angry, bile-filled rant will solve the problem? Maybe that will rebuild your precious library? No, it won’t. And the thing that makes me the most frustrated about her is that when I did some research on her I found out that she is now an American. She lives in North Bennington, Vermont, during the summers and teaches at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, California, during the academic year. Wait a minute, I thought Americans and America were bad? What is she doing about the problems in her beautiful homeland? Writing angry stories in a faraway place -- A not so small place. Frankly, I’m not impressed.
Throughout the entire book, I could feel her anger. It pressed in upon me while I was reading, heavy on my chest. I think that the author’s rage is genuine, but after some reflection, I don’t like it as a literary device. Her anger and vitriol were very effective at pulling the reader in. However, it felt like listening to an angsty teenage rant. After a while, I felt as if she should calm down, apologize, and explain her point to me in a less childish way.
Furthermore, the anger and name-calling gave her work a lack of overall credibility. In particular, things like calling the English “bad-minded” were very annoying to me. You can’t just make value-based judgments about an entire group of people. Sure, colonialism and slavery were harmful. But it’s not like an entire race of people woke up one day and decided that today was the day to be evil and racist and enslave people. Things are much more complicated than that. I’m not defending slavery and racism as proper institutions. The American South is still reeling from the aftereffects of such human folly. It’s not so black and white. There are shades in between of not only people, but of the overall situation. And why should I have to feel white guilt because I am a white American tourist? Maybe it is possible to participate in tourism and still understand things about which she speaks. Maybe she should shift the blame just a bit.
Kincaid also spends a lot of time in her book talking about what has happened in her post-colonial world. She speaks of the corruption in her government. I read her rant about the awful, terrible people who have her country under complete control. And I read about how her people don’t really seem to care. Now the question is, Kincaid, What are you going to do about it? I suppose writing an angry, bile-filled rant will solve the problem? Maybe that will rebuild your precious library? No, it won’t. And the thing that makes me the most frustrated about her is that when I did some research on her I found out that she is now an American. She lives in North Bennington, Vermont, during the summers and teaches at Claremont McKenna College in Claremont, California, during the academic year. Wait a minute, I thought Americans and America were bad? What is she doing about the problems in her beautiful homeland? Writing angry stories in a faraway place -- A not so small place. Frankly, I’m not impressed.
January 17, 2019
I will always be grateful to Stephanie from the blog @ Literary Flits for sending me her copy of this as it's a small book and she was done reading it!
It was a small book, but boy, Jamaica Kincaid was angry in this one. The good kind of angry. The James Baldwin writing Dark Days angry. She is simply fed up with the way her country is being treated, and rightfully so.
This charged essay is clearly and concisely presents its case and shows how terrible colonialism is, and how after all these years Antigua is still suffering from the after effects - post-colonialism, essentially. Like many countries, there are so many social, economic, environmental and political problems left behind with no support to help the country get back on its feet once again as it is 'independent' now. But independence can be granted, but it also needs to be founded and built again and those who responsible should contribute to this rebuilding, as she argues in this essay.
I don't know much about Antigua myself, and I learned a lot when reading this one. I like that even though this is an essay and her arguments are clear cut, she does show emotion too. The anger is obviously there, but through recounting personal memories and times, we get to hear wistfulness, hope in change and love for her country in there too.
I wish I knew how to write essays like Kincaid does.
It was a small book, but boy, Jamaica Kincaid was angry in this one. The good kind of angry. The James Baldwin writing Dark Days angry. She is simply fed up with the way her country is being treated, and rightfully so.
This charged essay is clearly and concisely presents its case and shows how terrible colonialism is, and how after all these years Antigua is still suffering from the after effects - post-colonialism, essentially. Like many countries, there are so many social, economic, environmental and political problems left behind with no support to help the country get back on its feet once again as it is 'independent' now. But independence can be granted, but it also needs to be founded and built again and those who responsible should contribute to this rebuilding, as she argues in this essay.
I don't know much about Antigua myself, and I learned a lot when reading this one. I like that even though this is an essay and her arguments are clear cut, she does show emotion too. The anger is obviously there, but through recounting personal memories and times, we get to hear wistfulness, hope in change and love for her country in there too.
I wish I knew how to write essays like Kincaid does.
August 31, 2018
As Salman Rushdie says in the introduction - a jeremiad- but a beautifully written jeremiad and contained in only 80 pages. I fear we are all becoming denizens of "A Small Place" not in a fixed geographical sense like Kincaid's Antigua, but economically and socially between the world of oligarchs, drug barons, tax dodgers, and those who are relegated to the College for Servants and who ought to feel grateful that they aren't outright slaves. I enjoyed the view of history, her personal memories of the power of a library, and the musing on the impersonal beauty of nature. I'll never take a Caribbean cruise.
August 14, 2017
!!! https://africanbookaddict.com/2017/08...
This is the 3rd Kincaid book I've read and she's always been a favorite. Where do I even begin with this one? ...It's brutal. Its brutal for the reader (especially if you are a reader who is white), for Antiguans, the Antiguan government and the tourism industry. Kincaid's 'A Small Place' is full of vitriol. She spews harsh criticisms on her native island's truly dishonest and disappointing leadership as an extension of colonialism. She also critiques the whole essence of travel, tourism and even tourists - who are mostly white. At some point, I wondered if Kincaid condoned xenophobia, because the way she describes the ways fellow Antiguans and other folks from the Caribbean dislike tourists (to the point where she actually insults white tourists), it could be seen as quite hateful. But then again, I read this book/memoir as a satire, so taking Kincaid's frank critique to heart is missing the point.
When I reached halfway through the book, I began to wonder if this book was banned at some point. It had to be! I'd fear for my life if I ever published anything like this! I doubt 'A Small Place' is even sold in the Caribbean because Kincaid goes IN on (former) Prime Ministers of Antigua, Grenada and Haiti. She's really a ball of fire, this Kincaid woman!
But on a whole, this book is important. It reveals a lot of truth and exposes the bad leadership (well, I don't know if the government of Antigua has changed much) of her native island. Will African and Caribbean leaders ever put the citizens first? WHEN will the thievery, lies, corruption and dishonesty end? This book reminded me of Chinua Achebe's 'The Trouble With Nigeria,' but Kincaid's sour wit and sarcasm are 100 times more piercing than Achebe's.
Read 'A Small Place' and marvel at this woman's heroism.
This is the 3rd Kincaid book I've read and she's always been a favorite. Where do I even begin with this one? ...It's brutal. Its brutal for the reader (especially if you are a reader who is white), for Antiguans, the Antiguan government and the tourism industry. Kincaid's 'A Small Place' is full of vitriol. She spews harsh criticisms on her native island's truly dishonest and disappointing leadership as an extension of colonialism. She also critiques the whole essence of travel, tourism and even tourists - who are mostly white. At some point, I wondered if Kincaid condoned xenophobia, because the way she describes the ways fellow Antiguans and other folks from the Caribbean dislike tourists (to the point where she actually insults white tourists), it could be seen as quite hateful. But then again, I read this book/memoir as a satire, so taking Kincaid's frank critique to heart is missing the point.
When I reached halfway through the book, I began to wonder if this book was banned at some point. It had to be! I'd fear for my life if I ever published anything like this! I doubt 'A Small Place' is even sold in the Caribbean because Kincaid goes IN on (former) Prime Ministers of Antigua, Grenada and Haiti. She's really a ball of fire, this Kincaid woman!
But on a whole, this book is important. It reveals a lot of truth and exposes the bad leadership (well, I don't know if the government of Antigua has changed much) of her native island. Will African and Caribbean leaders ever put the citizens first? WHEN will the thievery, lies, corruption and dishonesty end? This book reminded me of Chinua Achebe's 'The Trouble With Nigeria,' but Kincaid's sour wit and sarcasm are 100 times more piercing than Achebe's.
Read 'A Small Place' and marvel at this woman's heroism.
December 12, 2021
She is angry. She is grief-stricken. She is not at home with the things she lost. She is worried about what might happen if she doesn't speak about the wrongs of the present.
Jamaica Kincaid's A Small Place reads like an angry rant of a native who has seen the changes and transformations of her small place and who isn't covert at all with her words. Her 'rants' are anything but incoherent. She, very candidly, brings out chunks from her present and shows how wrong, the natives, particularly the ones at the top, are being. For colonisation, she has a very forthright thing to say - the Britishers should have remained at their home.
This book seethes with a kind of anger that, to me, seems unprecedented in a literary work. It is understandable. The people of my generation are slowly forgetting about sensitivity and close proximity to the culture we belong to. But people like Jamaica Kincaid, feel the pain of something which they've missed and are still missing. The anger needs to be understood. Their words need to be heard and thought about.
Jamaica Kincaid's A Small Place reads like an angry rant of a native who has seen the changes and transformations of her small place and who isn't covert at all with her words. Her 'rants' are anything but incoherent. She, very candidly, brings out chunks from her present and shows how wrong, the natives, particularly the ones at the top, are being. For colonisation, she has a very forthright thing to say - the Britishers should have remained at their home.
This book seethes with a kind of anger that, to me, seems unprecedented in a literary work. It is understandable. The people of my generation are slowly forgetting about sensitivity and close proximity to the culture we belong to. But people like Jamaica Kincaid, feel the pain of something which they've missed and are still missing. The anger needs to be understood. Their words need to be heard and thought about.
March 31, 2022
En este ensayo, la autora nos habla sobre la historia de Antigua y Barbuda. Como si se tratara de un guía turístico, nos lleva por diferentes sitios, nos cuenta historias, y nos da su opinión con respecto a la historia de la isla, el turismo, la corrupción política, el racismo, y muchos temas más.
Es un texto interesante a la vez que fuerte, directo, sin florituras, cargado de bronca, que te dice las cosas sin rodeos. Y está bueno eso. Porque a veces uno necesita un par de cachetadas que te hagan espabilar.
Decir más seria destriparlo. Apuntenlo, que se lo leen en un día.
Es un texto interesante a la vez que fuerte, directo, sin florituras, cargado de bronca, que te dice las cosas sin rodeos. Y está bueno eso. Porque a veces uno necesita un par de cachetadas que te hagan espabilar.
Decir más seria destriparlo. Apuntenlo, que se lo leen en un día.
May 7, 2018
[4.5 stars] A searing and brilliant indictment of all those who have exploited, from slavery to the present time, the citizens of Antigua. Kincaid writes with exquisite, measured fury. (I listened to the Hoopla audio with pitch-perfect narration by Robin Miles)
February 12, 2016
Part 1 - Poorly written, second-person, sanctimonious, stream of consciousness invective, that appears to have been written by an inebriate.
Part 2 - An immature argument that attacks tourism and British colonialism whilst stating laughable generalizations and infusing these with specifics from her childhood memories of resenting having a wash before seeing a doctor. Ironically, she mentions that "people can recite the first Antiguan who..." but fails to do so. Paradoxically, she also states that the colonialist were "un-Christian-like" after first complaining about a "British God" in chapter one
Part 3 - Opens up with the statement that imprisoning, murder, tyranny and corruption are lessons learned from the colonialists. An interesting theory not borne out by human history anywhere in the world, as afar as I am aware. This hypocritical theme continues its whining diatribe decrying bureaucracy and capitalism but offers up no alternative; ironically called out from a person who thrives in the US privately-funded academic system, hardly a bastion of socialist freedom.
Part 4 - This commences rather schizophrenically. After bemoaning the fact that Britain provided a library which "erased (her people's) history in an earlier chapter, significant description is given to how wonderful the old library was and how it was able to "acquaint me with you in all your greatness" despite her regular thieving of its contents. Similarly, a complaint of "the bad post-colonial education" suggests that colonial education was, in fact by her own inference, "good." She also complains that the islanders "speak English as if it were their sixth language" whilst forgetting her rant about the colonial tongue in previous chapter.
Part 5 and beyond - Well into her stride with the disconnected angry ramblings, Kincaid now attacks the modern day Antiguans for being corrupt and small minded as well as the foreigners who have the temerity to live in Antigua. There are several anecdotes peppered into what passes as a "theme" of writing, although quite what this thread is other than poorly constructed vehemence, is beyond me.
In summary:
Jamaica Kincaid is an angry woman, with an unchanneled misanthropic perspective. It is astounding that such an unstructured, bombastic piece of ill-thought out, almost drunken, rambling would ever be published.
On the positive side, it is mercifully short...
Part 2 - An immature argument that attacks tourism and British colonialism whilst stating laughable generalizations and infusing these with specifics from her childhood memories of resenting having a wash before seeing a doctor. Ironically, she mentions that "people can recite the first Antiguan who..." but fails to do so. Paradoxically, she also states that the colonialist were "un-Christian-like" after first complaining about a "British God" in chapter one
Part 3 - Opens up with the statement that imprisoning, murder, tyranny and corruption are lessons learned from the colonialists. An interesting theory not borne out by human history anywhere in the world, as afar as I am aware. This hypocritical theme continues its whining diatribe decrying bureaucracy and capitalism but offers up no alternative; ironically called out from a person who thrives in the US privately-funded academic system, hardly a bastion of socialist freedom.
Part 4 - This commences rather schizophrenically. After bemoaning the fact that Britain provided a library which "erased (her people's) history in an earlier chapter, significant description is given to how wonderful the old library was and how it was able to "acquaint me with you in all your greatness" despite her regular thieving of its contents. Similarly, a complaint of "the bad post-colonial education" suggests that colonial education was, in fact by her own inference, "good." She also complains that the islanders "speak English as if it were their sixth language" whilst forgetting her rant about the colonial tongue in previous chapter.
Part 5 and beyond - Well into her stride with the disconnected angry ramblings, Kincaid now attacks the modern day Antiguans for being corrupt and small minded as well as the foreigners who have the temerity to live in Antigua. There are several anecdotes peppered into what passes as a "theme" of writing, although quite what this thread is other than poorly constructed vehemence, is beyond me.
In summary:
Jamaica Kincaid is an angry woman, with an unchanneled misanthropic perspective. It is astounding that such an unstructured, bombastic piece of ill-thought out, almost drunken, rambling would ever be published.
On the positive side, it is mercifully short...
Read
August 14, 2020Lol at all the reviews on here like "why lady so angry?"
Here's why, because -- and I found myself nodding, living in a place so thoroughly dependent upon tourism, albeit nowhere near to the degree of Jamaica Kincaid's small place of Antigua -- colonialism and neocolonialism make monsters of us all. And Kincaid's writing style is what I aspire to in the best of times, a series of brilliant, masterfully constructed little recursive loops, all of which come together to tell a story with... anger. Righteous anger.
Are you feeling woke in the wake of the George Floyd protests and wanna read one of those books that they keep telling white people to read to educate themselves? Ignore those lists, and read Jamaica Kincaid. I would say she breathes fire, but no, she shoots lasers out of her eyes. In all the right places.
Here's why, because -- and I found myself nodding, living in a place so thoroughly dependent upon tourism, albeit nowhere near to the degree of Jamaica Kincaid's small place of Antigua -- colonialism and neocolonialism make monsters of us all. And Kincaid's writing style is what I aspire to in the best of times, a series of brilliant, masterfully constructed little recursive loops, all of which come together to tell a story with... anger. Righteous anger.
Are you feeling woke in the wake of the George Floyd protests and wanna read one of those books that they keep telling white people to read to educate themselves? Ignore those lists, and read Jamaica Kincaid. I would say she breathes fire, but no, she shoots lasers out of her eyes. In all the right places.
June 1, 2007
If anyone feels like reading the thesis of my term paper... :)
In A Small Place, Jamaica Kincaid uses her complex insider-outsider status within each of the three countries she was shaped by in her life—Britain, America, and her native Antigua—to argue that the reason islanders must rely on white culture for survival is due to the continual degradation of the education system. Her comprehension of the complex issues within each of these societies allows her to prove to her primarily white audience that, though native Antiguans have technically been granted “freedom” from English rule, over the course of time they have experienced an escalation of dependence on tourism for survival as education and literacy have decreased. This process, despite opinions to the contrary, continues to enforce the legacy of slavery that is an intrinsic part of the founding of the country. Though Antiguans celebrate their monumental Independence Day every year, there is an equally disturbing quality that hides beneath this holiday that Kincaid examines and exposes in this work. Her triangulated identity allows her to effectively explore the reasons for this state of educational decay, revealing the negative and positive effects of the British colonization and subsequent abandonment of Antigua, the rise of the American tourism industry and their lack of effectiveness in furthering education and literacy, and finally analyzing the Antiguan people themselves. Though they have little to work with in the way of natural resources, as human beings they have agency to make decisions, whether good or bad. Many embrace the white culture they rely on, even though they will never have full access to it or be viewed as equals by the conquering race. All of these variables render them more dependent on the European and Western world than ever before, and cut off almost all hope for educational improvements within the government, largely blocking any chance for the vast majority of islanders to escape this more evolved and unsettling form of slavery that exists today.
In A Small Place, Jamaica Kincaid uses her complex insider-outsider status within each of the three countries she was shaped by in her life—Britain, America, and her native Antigua—to argue that the reason islanders must rely on white culture for survival is due to the continual degradation of the education system. Her comprehension of the complex issues within each of these societies allows her to prove to her primarily white audience that, though native Antiguans have technically been granted “freedom” from English rule, over the course of time they have experienced an escalation of dependence on tourism for survival as education and literacy have decreased. This process, despite opinions to the contrary, continues to enforce the legacy of slavery that is an intrinsic part of the founding of the country. Though Antiguans celebrate their monumental Independence Day every year, there is an equally disturbing quality that hides beneath this holiday that Kincaid examines and exposes in this work. Her triangulated identity allows her to effectively explore the reasons for this state of educational decay, revealing the negative and positive effects of the British colonization and subsequent abandonment of Antigua, the rise of the American tourism industry and their lack of effectiveness in furthering education and literacy, and finally analyzing the Antiguan people themselves. Though they have little to work with in the way of natural resources, as human beings they have agency to make decisions, whether good or bad. Many embrace the white culture they rely on, even though they will never have full access to it or be viewed as equals by the conquering race. All of these variables render them more dependent on the European and Western world than ever before, and cut off almost all hope for educational improvements within the government, largely blocking any chance for the vast majority of islanders to escape this more evolved and unsettling form of slavery that exists today.
May 1, 2020
3.5*
..."you" are ugly as long as "you" are a tourist.
Šią plonutytę knygelę, labiau esė, autorė parašė iš didžiulės meiles savo gimtajai Antigua ir iš didelio skausmo dėl šios mažulytės salos Karibuose. Autorė kalba apie kitą - bjauriąją turizmo pusę , šalies korupcinę vyriausybę, apie nepriklausomybės ir buvimo Britų kolonija privalumus ir trūkumus...
..."you" are ugly as long as "you" are a tourist.
Šią plonutytę knygelę, labiau esė, autorė parašė iš didžiulės meiles savo gimtajai Antigua ir iš didelio skausmo dėl šios mažulytės salos Karibuose. Autorė kalba apie kitą - bjauriąją turizmo pusę , šalies korupcinę vyriausybę, apie nepriklausomybės ir buvimo Britų kolonija privalumus ir trūkumus...
June 15, 2017
It’s almost 30 years since this was written. I wonder how the author feels about it today. It created a storm in Antigua, as anyone who reads it could well imagine.
It starts with some creative, but not too damaging (to Antigua) thoughts on how tourists (should/do) block out unpleasant thoughts such as where the water they use comes from and where it goes; why the taxi is shiny and new, or how much the people who serve them make and where they live.
From there is moves to a rant, the essence of which is that the British colonial authorities were corrupt, and when they left in 1981, Antiguans only knew governing system of corruption and carried on colonial practices. Nothing is spared, from the Prime Minister’s involvement in drug dealing and prostitution to the librarian who was on to Kincaid’s hoarding library’s books. The rant, expresses the anger of those who lost their society and culture. While the passion is surely genuine and understandably justified, it is not good reading.
Kincaid is an American citizen now, essentially, joining the forces she condemns in this book.
This book might be read to understand the feelings of those who live in post colonial societies or for background on Antigua in this period. For Kincaid’s readers, I presume it would inform her fictional work.
It starts with some creative, but not too damaging (to Antigua) thoughts on how tourists (should/do) block out unpleasant thoughts such as where the water they use comes from and where it goes; why the taxi is shiny and new, or how much the people who serve them make and where they live.
From there is moves to a rant, the essence of which is that the British colonial authorities were corrupt, and when they left in 1981, Antiguans only knew governing system of corruption and carried on colonial practices. Nothing is spared, from the Prime Minister’s involvement in drug dealing and prostitution to the librarian who was on to Kincaid’s hoarding library’s books. The rant, expresses the anger of those who lost their society and culture. While the passion is surely genuine and understandably justified, it is not good reading.
Kincaid is an American citizen now, essentially, joining the forces she condemns in this book.
This book might be read to understand the feelings of those who live in post colonial societies or for background on Antigua in this period. For Kincaid’s readers, I presume it would inform her fictional work.
April 9, 2019
Kincaid's tirade against the Western powers which colonized and exploited small, Caribbean territories such as her homeland of Antigua and the corrupt, patronizing leaders who have dominated the political scene since the island nation achieved independence. She spends a lot of time berating tourists for cluttering her beaches and degrading her island's culture without really understanding it. I know her intent was to make the (probably Western) reader feel uncomfortable and guilty for the sins of their forefathers, but I really wasn't all that inspired by this book/novella/whatever you want to call it. I found it poorly written and its criticism somewhat misguided. The culture of the likely reading audience is impugned throughout, but American and European tourists only flock to Caribbean beaches because Antigua's only competitive industry is tourism, and I fail to see why that blame falls so squarely on the great powers. She spends some time discussing the willingness of her own people to put up with whatever corrupt, incompetent leadership takes power and the low living standards created by the siphoning off of funds from the top, but it lacks the fire of many of the other sections targeted at the West and seems more like a token mention to deflect criticism that she's too one sided. I wasn't particularly impressed by this shoddily-written rant which seems like a long-winded editorial written by someone who doesn't seem to understand the complexities of the situation of a place like Antigua and only sees in black and white.
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