Jamaica Kincaid gained wide acclaim with her first two works, At the Bottom of the River and Annie John. In these and other books about life on the Caribbean island of Antigua, where she was born, Kincaid employs a highly poetic literary style celebrated for its rhythms, imagery, characterization, and elliptic narration. As Ike Onwordi wrote in the Times Literary Supplement: "Kincaid uses language that is poetic without affectation. She has a deft eye for salient detail while avoiding heavy symbolism and diverting exotica. The result captures powerfully the essence of vulnerability." "Everyone thought I had a way with words, but it came out as a sharp tongue," Kincaid recalled to Leslie Garis in the New York Times Magazine. "No one expected anything from me at all. Had I just sunk in the cracks it would not have been noted. I would have been lucky to be a...