Criticism > Contemporary Literary Criticism > Kincaid, Jamaica - Opal Palmer Adisa (review date February 1991)

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Opal Palmer Adisa (review date February 1991)

SOURCE: “Island Daughter,” in Women's Review of Books, Vol. 9, No. 5, February, 1991, pp. 5–6.

[In the following review of Lucy, Adisa discusses Kincaid's portrayal of Caribbean life and continuities between Annie John and Lucy, concluding that the latter's protagonist is less likeable.]

Sardonic is the word that kept ringing through my head as I read Jamaica Kincaid's latest novel [Lucy]. Kincaid and I are sisters in that we are both children of the tropics, she a daughter of Antigua, I a daughter of Jamaica. So I should be able to say that I know Kincaid, but I don't, although I am intimate with a lot of the things she writes about. I certainly don't know Lucy Warner, the heroine of this novel, nor anyone like her who completely severs connections to her roots, her ancestry. Yet I understand her ruthless determination to shape herself in sharp contrast to...

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1. Introduction
2. Principal Works
3. Criticism
   1. David Nicholson (review date 3 July 1988)
   2. Louis James (essay date Winter 1988-89)
   3. Susanna Moore (review date 7 October 1990)
   4. Giovanna Covi (essay date 1990)
   5. Opal Palmer Adisa (review date February 1991)
   6. Hilton Als (review date 18 February 1991)
   7. Evelyn J. Hawthorne (review date Winter 1992)
   8. Moira Ferguson (essay date 1993)
   9. Diane Simmons (essay date Summer 1994)
   10. Keith E. Byerman (essay date February 1995)
   11. Jamaica Kincaid with Ivan Kreilkamp (interview date 1 January 1996)
   12. Richard Eder (review date 14 January 1996)
   13. Merle Rubin (review date 17 January 1996)
   14. Lore Segal (review date 5 February 1996)
   15. Johanna Keller (review date Summer 1996)
   16. Louis F. Canton (essay date Fall 1996)
   17. Edyta Oczkowicz (essay date Fall 1996)
   18. Nancy Chick (essay date September 1996)
   19. Andrea Stuart (review date 11 October 1996)
   20. Jacqueline Brice-Finch (review date Winter 1997)
   21. Gay Wachman (review date 3 November 1997)
   22. Kristen Mahlis (essay date Spring 1998)
   23. Deborah Plant (review date Fall 1999)
   24. Maxine Kumin (review date March 2000)
4. Further Reading
5. Copyright

1. Jamaica Kincaid