You are a human animal.

You are a very special breed.

Or you are the only animal.

Who can think, who can reason, who can read.

Hello and welcome to Bookworm.

This is Michael Silverblatt.

Today my guest is Jamaica Kincaid,

the author most recently of a book called My Brother.

It is about the death of her brother in Antigua from AIDS,

or the virus that causes AIDS.

The other books by Jamaica Kincaid in order are at the bottom of the river, Annie John,

a small place, Lucy, and the autobiography of my mother.

At the center of this book, there's a revelation that I think defines both the book and your way

of thinking about writing.

A brother is dead and is revealed to have been in fact homosexual, although this was not known by you

or by your family, and is revealed by someone who was with him in a support group who maintained

a house in which men could meet.

And the ability to be two things at once is something that your prose celebrates

and something that your brother was unable to enact.

He could not be both a gay man and a son or love and not love the mother.

And what seems to be so interesting about your prose is that your voice emerges as the voice of someone who has to love and not love, accept and reject, that oppositions

have to be expressed at all times for the health of the writing voice?

...