Mary Ellen von der Heyden Lecture

What Cassandra, Daughter of Potter, not Priam, Said

Jamaica Kincaid’s new novel concerns the allegorical Cassandra, whom she calls “the tenth daughter of Memory.” Memory has nine other known daughters, all of whom make up the foundation of civilization—unknown and unseen, ephemeral yet everlasting. Cassandra, Kincaid notes, does not so much write with a pen but with her tongue, which her detractors wish to remove. And why? Because they feel themselves wronged by Cassandra’s unquenchable drive to say things as they are: true.