World Literature: Jamaica Kincaid (Antigua/USA) “An Encyclopedia of Gardening for Colored Children”

We are delighted to welcome Jamaica Kincaid, winner of the Lannan Literary Award for Fiction and the American Book Award, to the Alphabet City stage this fall. The celebrated writer and gardener will engage in conversation with Curator for World Literature, Anderson Tepper, to discuss her life and work, with special focus on her latest book An Encyclopedia of Gardening for Colored Children. 

An Encyclopedia of Gardening for Colored Children is a witty, deeply original book for all ages, in which Jamaica Kincaid offers an ABC of the plants that define our world—and reveals the often brutal history behind them. Immensely inventive, surprising, and telling about what our gardens reveal, complete with provocative and brilliant watercolor illustrations by Kara Walker, one of America’s greatest visual artists, there has never been another book like it. 

“In collaborating with the fiercely imaginative visual artist Kara Walker, Kincaid has transposed this mode of thinking into an amalgam of erudition, discourse, storytelling and picture book art. A simple child’s garden of ABCs their ‘encyclopedia’ is not…Kincaid and Walker are unafraid to spin the world differently and make it matter in new ways.” —Celia McGee, The New York Times Book Review

The program consists of a brief reading, followed by a conversation and audience Q&A moderated by Anderson Tepper.

Purchase your own copy of Jamaica’s book, An Encyclopedia of Gardening for Colored Children, at City of Asylum Bookstore and get it signed at the program. 

About the Author:

Jamaica Kincaid was born in St. John’s, Antigua. Her books include At the Bottom of the River, Annie John, Lucy, The Autobiography of My Mother, and My Brother. She lives with her family in Vermont.

About the Moderator:

Anderson Tepper is City of Asylum’s Curator of World Literature. He has been a guest curator of PEN America’s World Voices Festival and is a longstanding member of the international committee of the Brooklyn Book Festival. He writes on books and authors for a variety of publications, including The New York Times, The Los Angeles Times, and World Literature Today. Anderson also serves on the City of Asylum Advisory Board.

About Your Visit: 

The in-house restaurant Cucina Alfabeto is open for brunch from 11am-3pm and for dinner from 5-9pm. Please visit Open Table or call 412-435-1111 to make a reservation.