Annie John

By: Jamaica Kincaid

Narrated by: Robin Miles

Length: 4 hrs and 19 mins

Publisher's summary

A haunting and tragicomic tale of the end of childhood, Annie John is told with Jamaica Kincaid’s trademark candour and complexity, and is a true coming-of-age classic.

An adored only child growing up in Antigua, Annie has until recently lived a peaceful and content life. She is inseparable from her beautiful mother, a powerful and influential presence, who sits at the very centre of the little girl’s existence. Loved and cherished, Annie grows and thrives within her mother’s shadow.

When she turns twelve, however, Annie’s life changes, in ways that are often mysterious to her. She begins to question the cultural assumptions of her island world; at school she makes rebellious friends and frequently challenges authority; and most frighteningly, her mother, seeing Annie as a ‘young lady’, ceases to be the source of unconditional adoration and takes on the new and unfamiliar guise of adversary.

Part of the Picador Collection, a series showcasing the best of modern literature.

©2022 Jamaica Kincaid (P)2022 Macmillan Publishers International Limited

Critic reviews

What a writer – elegant, uncompromising, simultaneously direct and layered and complex (Ali Smith)

So neon-bright that the traditional story of a young girl's passage into adolescence takes on a shimmering strangeness (Elaine Kendall)

An unaffectedly sumptuous, irresistible writer. . . thrilling (Susan Sontag)