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HON. DEREK WALCOTT

 Hon. Derek Walcott receives his Nobel Prize from the King of Sweden, King Carl XXI Guctaf, December 1992. 

To see events for week 23 to 29 January, 2000. click here

Walcott, Derek: 

Derek Walcott was born in 1930 in the town of Castries in Saint Lucia, one of the Windward Islands in the Lesser Antilles. The experience of growing up on the isolated volcanic island, an ex-British colony, has had a strong influence on Walcott's life and work. Both his grandmothers were said to have been the descendants of slaves. His father, a Bohemian watercolourist, died when Derek and his twin brother, Roderick, were only a few years old. His mother ran the town's Methodist school. After studying at St. Mary's College in his native island and at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica, Walcott moved in 1953 to Trinidad, where he has worked as theatre and art critic. At the age of 18, he made his debut with 25 Poems, but his breakthrough came with the collection of poems, In a Green Night (1962). In 1959, he founded the Trinidad Theatre Workshop which produced many of his early plays.

Walcott has been an assiduous traveler to other countries but has always, not least in his efforts to create an indigenous drama, felt himself deeply-rooted in Caribbean society with its cultural fusion of African, Asiatic and European elements. For many years, he has divided his time between Trinidad, where he has his home as a writer, and Boston University, where he teaches literature and creative writing.

Selected Bibliography

Verse

25 Poems, Port-of-Spain: Guardian Commercial Printery, 1948
Epitaph for the Young, Xll Cantos, Bridgetown: Barbados Advocate, 1949
Poems, Kingston, Jamaica, City Printery, 1951
In a Green Night, Poems 1948 - 60, London: Cape, 1962
Selected Poems, New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1964
The Castaway and Other Poems, London: Cape, 1965
The Gulf and Other Poems, London: Cape, 1969
Another Life, New York: Farrar Straus Giroux: London: Cape, 1973
Sea Grapes, London: Cape; New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1976
The Star-Apple Kingdom, New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1979
Selected Poetry, Ed. by Wayne Brown. London: Heinemann, 1981
The Fortunate Traveller, New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1981
The Caribbean Poetry of Derek Walcott, and the Art of Romare Bearden, New York: Limited Editions Club, 1983
Midsummer, New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1984
Collected Poems 1948-1984, New York, Farrar Straus Giroux, 1986
The Arkansas Testament, New York, Farrar Straus Giroux, 1987
Omeros, New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1990


Drama

Harry Dernier, Bridgetown: Barbados Advocate, 1952
Dream on Monkey Mountain and Other Plays, New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1970
The Joker of Seville & O Babylon!, New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1978
Remembrance & Pantomine: Two Plays, New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1980
Three Plays, New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1986


Critical Studies

The Art of Derek Walcott, Ed. by Stewart Brown, Bridgend: Seren Books, 1991

FromNobel Lectures,Literature 1991-1995.

The Nobel Prize for Literature

Swedish Academy
The Permanent Secretary

Press release: The Nobel Prize for Literature 1992

8 October 1992

Derek Walcott

This year the Swedish Academy has decided to award the Nobel Prize for Literature to Derek Walcott. Walcott, who is 62 was born in Saint Lucia but now lives in Trinidad. He has both African and European blood in his veins. In him West Indian culture has found its great poet. He also has a chair in English at Boston University.

Walcott showed his mettle early on. As the title of his substantial volume of "Collected Poems 1948-1984" shows, he was already writing poetry of lasting value at the end of his teens. Like Brodsky and Paz he has an intense belief in poetry and poets and he has made this one of his themes.

Otherwise it is the complexity of his own situation that has provided one of the most fruitful sources of inspiration. Three loyalties are central for him - the Caribbean where he lives, the English language, and his African origin. In the poem "A Far Cry from Africa", he says "How choose / Between this Africa and the English tongue I love?" One of his major works, the long poem "Another Life" (1973), is devoted to his development and the course of his education in this environment.

In his collection of poems "The Arkansas Testament" (1987) he continues the broadening of perspective which is also a characteristic of his oeuvre. Among these poems can be found works dedicated to Marina Tsvetaeva and W.H. Auden ("Strict as Psalm or Lesson, / I learnt your poetry").

Walcott's latest poetic work is "Omeros" (1990), a majestic Caribbean epos in 64 chapters - "I sang our wide country, the Caribbean Sea". This is a work of incomparable ambitiousness, in which Walcott weaves his many strands into a whole. Its weft is a rich one, deriving from the poet's wide-ranging contacts with literature, history and reality. We find Homer, Poe, Mayakovsky and Melville, allusions are made to Brodsky (" the parentheses of palms / shielding a candle's tongue"), and he quotes the Beatles' "Yesterday". Walcott's metaphors and images are numerous, and often striking - "And beyond them, like dominoes / with lights for holes, the black skyscrapers of Boston". He captures white seagulls against a blue sky in the image "Gulls chalk the blue enamel". His poetry acquires at one and the same time singular lustre and great force.

Walcott is in the first place a poet but he has also produced interesting work for the theatre. His masterstroke was "Dream on Monkey Mountain" (1970), a striking but scenographically demanding Caribbean fresco. The same dream-like atmosphere can be found in several of his plays, such as "Ti-Jean and His Brothers" (1958) and, to a certain extent, in "The Last Carnival" (in "Three Plays" (1986), which deals with two important decades in the recent history of Trinidad. A significant feature of his plays is the skill with which the author plays on his own complex range of voices. It is impossible, however, to reproduce this in the totally different language situation of Sweden.

Walcott's style is melodious and sensitive. It seems to issue principally from a prolific inspiration. In his literary works Walcott has laid a course for his own cultural environment, but through them he speaks to each and every one of us.

SAINT LUCIA'S TO HONOUR DEREK WALCOTT

A number of activities to honour the island’s two Nobel Laureates begins  from January 22 , 2000,  with a presentation evening entitled "Pinnacles of Pride" to be held at the National Cultural Centre. This is organised by the M&C Fine Arts Awards Committee.

On January 23, Nobel Laureate Day, Saint Lucians will celebrate with Honourable Derek Walcott, his 70^th birthday, at the Pigeon Island National Landmark. On the 24^th, an open air presentation will be held at the Derek Walcott Square. Addresses will be delivered by government ministers with the feature address presented by Jamaican Poet, Ms. Lorna Goodison.

Other major activities include a Derek Walcott evening on Sunday, January 26 and the annual Sir Arthur Lewis Memorial Lecture on Friday, January 28. A special exhibition honouring both Laureates opens at the Castries City Hall on Tuesday, January 25. This exhibition will travel to Soufriere and Vieux fort at a later date. The Ministry of Education is also preparing special programmes for schools to ensure their participation.

Sir Arthur Lewis was awarded the prestigious title of Nobel Laureate for his work in Economics in 1979. Honourable Derek Walcott received the Nobel prize for Literature in 1992.

Books by Derek Walcott

LINKS:

The Nobel Prize in Literature 1992

http://www.as.nobel.se/laureates/literature-1992.html

International Writers Series

http://worldwriters.english.sbc.edu/walcott.html

The Capeman:

A Broadway musical version of "The Capeman" adapted by Simon and Nobel prize winning author Derek Walcott opens January, 1998.

http://www.wbr.com/paulsimon/capeman/cmp/story.html

A POET'S ST. LUCIA

http://academic.brooklyn.cuny.edu/classics/jvsickle/walcstl.htm

1992 Nobel Laureate in Literature for a poetic oeuvre of great luminosity, sustained by a historical vision, the outcome of a multicultural commitment.

http://nobelprizes.com/nobel/literature/1992a.html

Other  books.

http://www.harapan.co.jp/english/e_books/E_B_nobel92_walcott_e.htm

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