Jamaica Kincaid was born on May 25, 1949  in Antigua. She was christened Elaine Potter Richardson, but when she fled the island at the age of seventeen. When she left her family as well as her name behind and entered North America as Jamaica Kincaid. Her work is considered autobiographical work. She worked first in New York City as an au pair, for an upper class family much like the one pictured in Lucy. She left this work to study photography at the New School for Social Research and then went on to Franconia College in New Hampshire (but did not take a degree) before returning to New York. There she became a regular contributor to the New Yorker magazine, writing for nearly twenty years (1976-1995) before the arrival of new management convinced her to leave. She now resides in Bennington Vermont with her husband and children.
 

• Talk Stories (2001) 
• My Garden (1999) 
• My Favorite Plant (editor) (1998) 
• My Brother (1997) 
• The Autobiography of My Mother (1996) 
• "Song of Roland." New Yorker (12 April 1993) 
• At the Bottom of the River (1992) 
• Lucy (1990) 
• "Ovando." Conjunctions14 (1989) 
• A Small Place (1988) 
• Annie John (1983) 
• "Antigua Crossing." Rolling Stone. (29 June 1978)