Status Updates From En liten plats

“[E]verywhere they went they turned it into England[….] But no place could ever really be England, and nobody who did not look exactly like them would ever be English, so you can imagine the destruction of people and land that came from that. The English hate each other and they hate England, and the reason they are so miserable now is that they have no place else to go and nobody else to feel better than.”

'They [the natives] are too poor to escape the reality of their lives; and they are too poor to live properly in the place where they live, which is the very place, you, the tourist, want to go - so when the natives see you, the tourist, they envy you, they envy your ability to leave your own banality and boredom, they envy your ability to turn your own banality and boredom into a source of pleasure for yourself.'

‘Every native would like to find a way out, every native would like a rest, every native would like a tour.
But some natives—most natives in the world— cannot go anywhere. They are too poor.’ p.18

Incredible prose that makes one pause and think about lives of native people of Antigua ( or any other small, post-colonial island). Fiery and angry ( and she has every right to be), Kincaid doesn’t sweeten the pill and lays it out for the reader as it is.