Antigua is one of the “Lesser Antilles in the eastern Caribbean Sea, at the southern end of the Leeward Islands chain.” – Encyclopedia Brittanica
A Small Place, by Jamaica Kincaid (New York : Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2000; originally published in 1988)
“But let me show you the Antigua that I used to know.” – from A Small Place, by Jamaica Kincaid
All visitors to the beautiful “nine miles wide by twelve miles long” island of Antigua should read A Small Place, by Jamaica Kincaid. Taking readers beyond the tourist centers, Kincaid describes the ravages of slavery, British colonialism, and the corruption of the Antiguan government. She wants tourists to wonder why this tourist paradise has inadequate medical service, education, libraries, sanitation, or roads. She wants visitors to think about the rampant poverty. She wants tourists to take the time to see beyond the resorts and into the lives of the people. One will not have truly visited Antigua, or, for that matter, anywhere on earth, without heeding the lessons of A Small Place.
“Have I given you the impression that the Antigua I grew up in revolved almost completely around England? Well, that was so. I met the world through England, and if the world wanted to meet me it would have to do so through England.” – from A Small Place, by Jamaica Kincaid
"If you go to Antigua as a tourist, this is what you will see. If you come by aeroplane, you will land at the V. C. Bird International Airport. Vere Cornwall (V. C.) Bird is the Prime Minister of Antigua. You may be the sort of tourist who would wonder why a Prime Minister would want an airport named after him--why not a school, why not a hospital, why not some great public monument. You are a tourist and you have not yet seen . . ." – from A Small Place, by Jamaica Kincaid