Hear Jamaica Kincaid’s Classic Story “Girl” Read by Fellow New Yorker Writer Edwidge Danticat

Jamaica Kin­caid is out with her first nov­el in ten years, See Now Then, but she hasn’t been idle, steadi­ly pub­lish­ing non-fic­tion and essays in the span between 2002’s Mr. Pot­ter and now. Kin­caid is a many-faceted woman: Antiguan native, con­tent­ed Ver­mont gar­den­er, improb­a­ble lit­er­ary suc­cess sto­ry, fierce crit­ic of Euro­pean colo­nial­ism. She is also, most like­ly, one of the most anthol­o­gized writ­ers of the past few decades. Any­one who’s tak­en a writ­ing or intro lit class recent­ly has no doubt read her short sto­ry (or prose-poem) “Girl.”

With Kin­caid in the news for her new book, the New York­er’s Page-Turn­er blog caught up with one of her admir­ers, Hait­ian-Amer­i­can author and fel­low New York­er colum­nist Edwidge Dan­ti­cat and asked her to read two of Kincaid’s clas­sic sto­ries, “Girl” and “Wing­less,” pub­lished in the New York­er in 1978 and ’79, for their fic­tion pod­cast. Dan­ti­cat glad­ly oblig­ed (hear the audio above), but not before briefly dis­cussing her rela­tion­ship to Kin­caid and her work.

And for more on the new book, lis­ten to the NPR Kin­caid inter­view with All Things Con­sid­ered’s Celeste Headlee. Kin­caid dis­cuss­es writ­ing, the themes of the new nov­el, and the auto­bi­o­graph­i­cal con­tent in her work. You can read an excerpt from See Here Now here.

The read­ing above has been added to our col­lec­tion of Free Audio Books.

Josh Jones is a writer, edi­tor, and musi­cian based in Wash­ing­ton, DC. Fol­low him @jdmagness

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The New Yorker’s Fic­tion Pod­cast: Where Great Writ­ers Read Sto­ries by Great Writ­ers

Rare 1959 Audio: Flan­nery O’Connor Reads ‘A Good Man is Hard to Find’

David Sedaris Reads You a Sto­ry By Miran­da July