01/26/2024

ST. LOUIS – Tickets for the 2024 St. Louis Literary Award presentation are now available.

Renowned Antigua-born author Jamaica Kincaid will receive the Literary Award at the Sheldon Concert Hall at 7 p.m. on Thursday, April 25. A craft talk will be held at 10 a.m. on Friday, April 26, on Saint Louis University’s campus.

Kincaid explores themes of colonialism, gender and sexuality, racism, class, and familial relationships in her work. She came to the United States as a teenager and, as a young woman, began writing columns and stories for Ingénue, The Village Voice, and Ms.

Her work has also appeared in The Paris Review and The New Yorker.

Kincaid published her first book in 1983, “At the Bottom of the River,” is a collection of short stories and reflections. She is the author of the novels “Annie John,” “Lucy,” and “See Now Then,” and the more personal books “The Autobiography of My Mother,” “Among Flowers: A Walk in the Himalaya,” and “My Brother,” which explores the death from AIDS of her younger brother. 

She is the recipient of a Guggenheim grant. Kincaid has also been nominated for the National Book Award. She was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Letters in 2004 and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 2009.

Kincaid is a professor in the African and African American Studies department as well as the Department of English at Harvard University.

Purchase Tickets

The St. Louis Literary Award department in SLU Libraries also includes a Campus Read series, which is open to the public; the Undergraduate Writing Award; Literature & Medicine; Inspired By Arts Showcase for High School and College Students; and the Walter J. Ong S.J. Award for Excellence in Graduate Student Research. 

St. Louis Literary Award 

The St. Louis Literary Award is presented annually by the Saint Louis University Libraries and has become one of the top literary prizes in the country. The award honors a writer who deepens our insight into the human condition and expands the scope of our compassion. Some of the most important writers of the 20th and 21st centuries have come to Saint Louis University to accept the honor, including Margaret Atwood, Salmon Rushdie, Eudora Welty, John Updike, Saul Bellow, August Wilson, Stephen Sondheim, Zadie Smith and Tom Wolfe.

About Saint Louis University

Founded in 1818, Saint Louis University is one of the nation’s oldest and most prestigious Catholic institutions. Rooted in Jesuit values and its pioneering history as the first university west of the Mississippi River, SLU offers more than 15,200 students a rigorous, transformative education of the whole person. At the core of the University’s diverse community of scholars is SLU’s service-focused mission, which challenges and prepares students to make the world a better, more just place.