Annie John

<p><b>The essential, urgent coming-of-age novel by Jamaica Kincaid, a reinventor of the form.<br></b><br>Since her first, prizewinning collection of stories, <i>At the Bottom of the River</i>, Jamaica Kincaid¿s work has been met with nothing short of amazement. <i>The New York Times </i>hailed her ¿prophetic power¿ and the <i>Los Angeles Times Book Review </i>said, ¿No one else seems to be writing quite this way.¿<br><br>With <i>Annie John</i>, the story of a young girl coming of age in Antigua, Kincaid tore open the theme that lies at the heart of her fierce, incantatory novels: the ambivalent and essential bonds created by a mother¿s love. In this book, written in Kincaid¿s lucid, elemental style, Annie John¿s ambivalence is universally familiar and wrenchingly real.</p>