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.

Her most recent novel is the autobiography of my mother.

It's been brought out recently in paper by Plume, Penguin Books.

All of her books are in print.

The previous one is a book of journalism, a small place.

Before that, a novel, Lucy.

Before that, another novel, Annie John,

and the first of all, a book of short stories at the bottom of the river.

The hardcover publisher has been consistently,

Farah Strauss, the paperback, Plume.

And I wanted to begin, as soon as I saw the title,

The Autobiography of My Mother, by Jamaica Kincaid,

I thought immediately of the autobiography of Alice B. Tokus by Gertrude Stein.

Yes.

And I opened up and began to find those beautifully cadenced sentences as if a descendant

of what Gertrude Stein was doing.

...