A SMALL PLACE<i> by Jamaica Kincaid (Farrar, Straus & Giroux: $13.95; 96 pp.) </i>

Jamaica Kincaid has written a powerful essay about her native Antigua, evoking the languid rhythms of tropical life in prose that is also urgent and poetic.--Caryl Phillips

SUBJECT TO CHANGE by Lois Gould (Farrar, Straus & Giroux: $16.95; 202 pp.) This Renaissance morality tale of journeys and spells is loosely based on the court of Henry II, where an ironic reversal of power and position occurs, and what happens precisely is not precisely clear.--Richard Eder