Given to composition
For novelist and essayist Jamaica Kincaid, writing is not so much a passion — or a living — as a life force. “I have this view of writing as something I’d die for,” Kincaid, an African and African American studies professor in residence, said during a panel Tuesday helping to kick off the three-day Harvard LitFest. “I want to write in the way prophets want to do something. I never knew people could become rich writing, but I wanted to write and I just did it.” Kincaid was joined at the Barker Center’s Thompson Room by Johanna Berkman and Samantha Perry David. The event, titled “Building Lives, Building Careers,” included an audience question for Kincaid on whether she seeks feedback from friends or editors to help with revisions. “I write something, and then I say ‘This is it.’ I don’t take other people’s advice, but I say ‘Publish it or not,’” she said....