Untamed Mastery: The Garden and the World of Jamaica Kincaid
"When I'm writing, I think about the garden, and when I'm in the garden I think about writing. I do a lot of writing by putting something in the ground." Antiguan-American essayist and novelist Jamaica Kincaid has redefined the genre of garden writing with My Garden (Book), Among Flowers: A Walk in the Himalayas, and now in collaboration with artist Kara Walker An Encyclopedia of Gardening for Colored Children. Jamaica will be joined by Emily Greenhouse for a very special conversation about the garden as a site of creativity, personal discovery, and engagement with (and not refuge from), the larger socio-political issues of our time.
Photo courtesy of Jamaica Kincaid
Jamaica Kincaid
Jamaica Kincaid is the author of several short story collections, novels, and nonfiction books, including At the Bottom of the River (1983), winner of the Morten Dauwen Zabel Award from the American Academy of Arts and Letters; The Autobiography of My Mother (1996), winner of the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award; and See Now Then (2013), winner of the Before Columbus Foundation American Book Award. Her other honors include a fellowship from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Lannan Literary Award for Fiction, and the Lila Wallace-Reader’s Digest Award. A member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences and the American Academy of Arts and Letters, Kincaid is Professor of African American Studies in Residence at Harvard University
Emily Greenhouse
Emily Greenhouse is the editor of the New York Review of Books. She is the first woman to be sole editor of the magazine, and when she was appointed was the youngest editor in its history. Previously, she worked as a reporter and as the Managing Editor at the New Yorker.