A Small Place is a nonfiction essay by Jamaica Kincaid. In it, she returns to Antigua, the tiny Caribbean island where she was born and where her family still lives. It is her first trip "home" after two decades in the United States; she sees her childhood home with sharp, adult, eyes. She also sees with fury, a sense of injustice, and a long-form critique of the fate of postcolonial nations.
The book was her first work of nonfiction. While Kincaid had been a contributor to the New Yorker magazine for many years, the magazine's then editor, Robert Gottlieb, rejected it "for being 'too angry'" (https://lithub.com/the-view-from-jamaica-kincaids-antigua/). Until this point, Kincaid's...