A collaboration between author Jamaica Kincaid and artist Kara Walker, An Encyclopedia of Gardening for Colored Children takes readers of all ages on a journey through the colonial history of plants, exploring fruits, flowers and other figures from our botanical world.
You may also like
- The top ten books about plants
- Richard Maybey's new book is filled with musings on his new garden
- No one ever said gardening was an option
- Best books on floristry to read
Jamaica’s text accompanies each entry, and Kara Walker illustrates them with multi-layered watercolours. Guiding readers through the ABCs of the plants that define our world, both artists reveal the often-brutal history behind them. This witty yet hard-hitting book gives an important look at how the legacies of empire and slavery shape where and why we grow certain crops.
Jamaica’s previous books include At the Bottom of the River; Annie John; Lucy; The Autobiography of My Mother; My Brother; Mr Potter and See Now Then. She teaches at Harvard University and lives in Vermont, USA.
SQUIRREL_13122051
An Encyclopedia of Gardening for Colored Children by Jamaica Kincaid and Kara Walker
Farrar, Straus and Giroux, £23.99 ISBN 978-0374608255
Tell us about the new book and why you wrote it.
The book is called The Encyclopedia of Gardening for Colored Children and it assumes that all children are one colour or another, as are all people, come to think of it. I wrote it for the child I still am. We also wrote for all the children around the world, using the letters of the alphabet to explore our gardens and the seeds of colonialism that remain in the natural world.
What did you learn from writing the book?
I learned how much I loved and still love certain subjects: history, geography and botany. Working on the book also introduced me to Kara Walker, who I did not know personally before. But I love her work and it has been a pleasure to collaborate, even though we are still yet to meet in person.
If there’s one idea you’d like to share from the book, what would it be?
The world is a separate entity from the Earth.
I’ll read anything about…
How to keep deer out of my garden.
The books on my night stand right now are…
A History of Portugal and the Portuguese Empire Volumes 1 and 2 by AR Disney.
What sparked your interest in gardening?
My mother and her ability to eat a fruit or vegetable, and if she liked it, plant the seed and see it grow until it bore fruit or vegetable, and see her eat it. If you have a parent who gardens, you will come to it one way or another. As I grew older, my fascination with gardening became intertwined with interests in power, geography and the effects of colonialism. My gardening also became tied up with my writing: when I garden, I am thinking of writing and when I am writing, I am thinking of gardening.
What’s your guilty gardening secret?
Buying more plants than I can afford. It has made my children hate the garden.
What is your current garden like?
A lovable, to me, mess. I encounter so much in there and cultivate many things. Last winter, I planted 2,000 daffodils. I also grow Crambe maritima in honour of Derek Jarman and the garden he made in Dungeness. This spring just gone, I watched masses of peonies bloom.
Can you share your biggest gardening failure?
To date, I am unable to grow Papaver bracteatum, or the great scarlet poppy.
What’s your favourite landscape?
There are so many, but they are all locked up in memory. Landscapes, like gardens, are often about memory and I have previously said that memory is a gardener’s real palette. Often in the garden or in faraway lands, I encounter a smell or a sight that transports me back to Antigua.
What else are you up to at the moment?
Looking out the window at some aggressive Petasites japonicus, seemingly about to march into a cottage in the woods.
SQUIRREL_13122051