Jamaica Kincaid Leaves Harvard for Claremont McKenna College

Claremont McKenna College, the highly selective liberal arts college in California, has scored a hiring coup by appointing Jamaica Kincaid as a professor of literature. She will teach two courses in the upcoming fall semester: autobiography and literary imagination as well as fiction writing. Kincaid had held a joint appointment in English and African and African-American studies at Harvard University.

Kincaid is a native of Antigua. She moved to New York at the age of 16 to work as an au pair. After attending Franconia College in New Hampshire for a short period, Kincaid became a fact checker at Forbes magazine and later a staff writer for The New Yorker.

She published her first novel in 1983. Her 1996 book, The Autobiography of My Mother, was a finalist for the PEN/Faulkner Award in Fiction. She was a finalist for the National Book Award in 1997 for her novel, My Brother. Her most recent book is Among Flowers: A Walk in the Himalaya. She is currently at work on a new novel entitled See Now Then.

Professor Kincaid has been elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

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