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A Small Place |  | Author: Jamaica Kincaid
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Category: Book
List Price: $12.00
Buy Used: $2.78
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Seller: lookatabook
Rating:  35 reviews
Sales Rank: 3743
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1st
Pages: 96
Number Of Items: 1
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.3
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.7 x 0.5
ISBN: 0374527075
Dewey Decimal Number: 972.92
EAN: 9780374527075
ASIN: 0374527075
Publication Date: April 28, 2000
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
A brilliant look at colonialism and its effects in Antigua--by the author of Annie John
"If you go to Antigua as a tourist, this is what you will see. If you come by aeroplane, you will land at the V. C. Bird International Airport. Vere Cornwall (V. C.) Bird is the Prime Minister of Antigua. You may be the sort of tourist who would wonder why a Prime Minister would want an airport named after him--why not a school, why not a hospital, why not some great public monument. You are a tourist and you have not yet seen . . ."
So begins Jamaica Kincaid's expansive essay, which shows us what we have not yet seen of the ten-by-twelve-mile island in the British West Indies where she grew up.
Lyrical, sardonic, and forthright by turns, in a Swiftian mode, A Small Place cannot help but amplify our vision of one small place and all that it signifies.
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| Customer Reviews:
Showing reviews 1-5 of 35
 An island paradise February 5, 2005
The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers (RAWSISTAZ.com and BlackBookReviews.net)
14 out of 17 found this review helpful
Antigua, an awe-inspiring vacation spot for Europeans and North Americans, takes on a different aura when discussed by native Jamaica Kincaid. Ms. Kincaid describes how the Antiguans feel about the tourists who visit: ugly people. Ugly because they invaded, then brought slaves to work for them so they could become rich while ignoring the needs of those who made them wealthy. Ugly because of what they've done to the island and the people who live there. Jamaica talks about the corrupt government and the hand that North Americans, British, Syrians and Lebanese play in that corruption. She describes how England paved the roads the Queen of England would travel when she visited, but left everything else in poor condition. Ms. Kincaid also mentions the drug dealers that the government ignores and those who build ugly condos for the wealthy and rent business space to the government who should be building their own space.
In a very few pages, Jamaica Kincaid says what a lot of former slaves would like to say but are perhaps too politically correct to utter. She does the job for us. Ms. Kincaid does not mince her words when it comes to what the British Empire did to the people of Antigua and the world for that matter. Frequently, I found myself wanting to stand up and cheer as I read her words of disgust and anger. While Ms. Kincaid is specifically speaking of Antigua, her words describe the slave trade and the destruction and poverty left in the wake of it no matter what country. It is well worth reading - more than once.
Reviewed by alice Holman
of The RAWSISTAZ Reviewers
fantastic September 24, 2009
K. Walsh (Cleveland, OH USA)
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
This was a wonderful book. Antigua is a very "Small Place" but it really looks at the big picture and illustrates colonialism and neocolonialism as it happened all around the world. A really heartbreaking portrait of the island of Antigua.
Justified anger and frustration November 2, 2000
Evelyn M Baltodano (New Haven, Connecticut United States)
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
Can't say enough about this book. . . She succintly and poignantly articulates the reality of developing nations with colonial legacies with priceless ardor, sadness and frustration.. A must for those who like to confront the consequences of history.
Kincaid's Mad as Hell, and She's Not Going to Take it Anymore January 11, 2007
P. B. Coovert (Tampa, FL, USA)
4 out of 5 found this review helpful
Published in 1988 Kincaid's "A Small Place" is an unflinchingly angry portrayal of post-colonial, post-slavery life on the island of Antigua. To put it simply: Kincaid is as mad as hell, and she's not going to take it anymore. If you're white and can shelve your defensiveness for a moment this book is actually really enjoyable, it's written in first person and directed at "you," the British colonizer and/or the fat white tourist. Kincaid's sense of humor is wonderfully dark, and there are a lot of moments of humor if you keep an open mind. Still, at the heart of the matter is the story of Antigua's decay, left to rot by the British colonizers, with a population that doesn't vote openly corrupt officials out of office. She openly points out the irony of the celebration of emancipation alongside the valorization of the Hotel Training School, which teaches the residents of the island to be servants. In the end Kincaid concludes that no one is to blame, that after slavery the masters are no longer evil and the slaves are no longer "noble," but that everyone is merely human. She problematizes the matter, but offers no solutions, which might irritate those concrete sequentials among us. Also, she refers to Columbus, and the explorers in general, so adored in American culture, as "human rubbish" on multiple occasions. You might not agree with Kincaid, but this is one topic someone should be angry about, and her unapologetic narrative is about as honest as you can get.
thought provoking February 26, 1999
8 out of 11 found this review helpful
When we all visit from our safe, comfortable, clean northern usa cities, we should take a closer look at the caribbean to see what the government has done with tourism dollars. It is not being spent on their people or their needs. As we enjoy the sun, ocean, food, and, most importantly, the people, ask where the money we are donating to the economy goes and if we have a right to pollute their lovely island. We walk around in scantly clad clothes and take no notice of what the native people think of this. Their morals are much higher than ours. Tourism will continue to ruin all of the West Indies, we must question our own government's motives in supporting the Byrd family.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 35
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