A Study Guide for Jamaica Kincaid's "What Have I Been Doing Lately"

By Gale and Cengage

A Study Guide for Jamaica Kincaid's "What Have I Been Doing Lately," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Short Stories for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Short Stories for Students for all of your research needs.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Cengage Learning - Gale
• Release date: Jul 6, 2016
• ISBN: 9781535842600

Book preview

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What I Have Been Doing Lately

Jamaica Kincaid

1981

Introduction

What I Have Been Doing Lately was first published in the Paris Review in 1981. Kincaid included this piece in her first published book, At the Bottom of the River (1983), which earned her the Morton Dauwen Zabel Award of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters. According to Leslie Garis in her New York Times Magazine article about Kincaid, At the Bottom of the River made Kincaid an instant literary success. David Leavitt, in his review for the Village Voice, praised Kincaid for "her ability to articulate the internal workings of a potent imagination without sacrificing the rich details of the external world on which that imagination