Walcott, Derek

Walcott, Derek

▪ West Indian poet
in full  Derek Alton Walcott  
born January 23, 1930, Castries, Saint Lucia

      West Indian poet and playwright noted for works that explore the Caribbean cultural experience. He received the Nobel Prize for Literature (Nobel Prize winners by category (literature)) in 1992.

      Walcott was educated at St. Mary's College in Saint Lucia and at the University of the West Indies in Jamaica. He began writing poetry at an early age, taught at schools in Saint Lucia and Grenada, and contributed articles and reviews to periodicals in Trinidad and Jamaica. Productions of his plays began in Saint Lucia in 1950, and he studied theatre in New York City in 1958–59. He lived thereafter in Trinidad and the United States, teaching for part of the year at Boston University.

      Walcott is best known for his poetry, beginning with In a Green Night: Poems 1948–1960 (1962). This book is typical of his early poetry in its celebration of the Caribbean landscape's natural beauty. The verse in Selected Poems (1964), The Castaway (1965), and The Gulf (1969) is similarly lush in style and incantatory in mood as Walcott expresses his feelings of personal isolation, caught between his European cultural orientation and the black folk cultures of his native Caribbean. Another Life (1973) is a book-length autobiographical poem. In Sea Grapes (1976) and The Star-Apple Kingdom (1979), Walcott uses a tenser, more economical style to examine the deep cultural divisions of language and race in the Caribbean. The Fortunate Traveller (1981) and Midsummer (1984) explore his own situation as a black writer in America who has become increasingly estranged from his Caribbean homeland.

      Walcott's Collected Poems, 1948–1984, was published in 1986. In his book-length poem Omeros (1990), he retells the dramas of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey in a 20th-century Caribbean setting. The poems in The Bounty (1997) are mostly devoted to Walcott's Caribbean home and the death of his mother. In 2000 Walcott published Tiepolo's Hound, a poetic biography of West Indian-born French painter Camille Pissarro (Pissarro, Camille) with autobiographical references and reproductions of Walcott's paintings. (The latter are mostly watercolours of island scenes. Walcott's father had been a visual artist, and the poet began painting early on.) The book-length poem The Prodigal (2004), its setting shifting between Europe and North America, explores the nature of identity and exile. Selected Poems, a collection of poetry from across Walcott's career, appeared in 2007.

      Of Walcott's approximately 30 plays, the best-known are Dream on Monkey Mountain (produced 1967), a West Indian's quest to claim his identity and his heritage; Ti-Jean and His Brothers (1958), based on a West Indian folktale about brothers who seek to overpower the Devil; and Pantomime (1978), an exploration of colonial relationships through the Robinson Crusoe story. The Odyssey: A Stage Version appeared in 1993. Many of Walcott's plays make use of themes from black folk culture in the Caribbean.

      The essays in What the Twilight Says (1998) are literary criticism. They examine such subjects as the intersection of literature and politics and the art of translation.

Additional Reading
Robert D. Hamner, Derek Walcott, updated ed. (1993), traces Walcott's life and works. Bruce King, Derek Walcott: A Caribbean Life (2000), is the first authorized literary biography. Stewart Brown (ed.), The Art of Derek Walcott (1991); Rei Terada, Derek Walcott's Poetry: American Mimicry (1992); Robert D. Hamner (compiler and ed.), Critical Perspectives on Derek Walcott (1993, reissued 1997); Bruce King, Derek Walcott and West Indian Drama (1995, reissued 1997); and John Thieme, Derek Walcott (1999), are critical studies.

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  • Walcott, Derek (Alton) — born Jan. 23, 1930, Castries, Saint Lucia West Indian poet and playwright. Of mixed black, Dutch, and English descent, Walcott was educated in Saint Lucia and Jamaica. After 1958 he lived in Trinidad and the U.S. Most of his works explore the… …   Universalium

  • Walcott, Derek (Alton) — (n. 23 ene. 1930, Castries, Santa Lucía). Poeta y dramaturgo antillano. De ascendencia negra, holandesa e inglesa, Walcott fue educado en Santa Lucía y Jamaica. Después de 1958 vivió en Trinidad y EE.UU. La mayor parte de sus obras exploran la… …   Enciclopedia Universal

  • Walcott, Derek — ► (n. 1930) Escritor antillano. Es autor de poemas y obras de teatro. Ha escrito Another Life (1973), entre otras. En 1992 recibió el premio Nobel …   Enciclopedia Universal

  • Walcott — Walcott, Derek …   Enciclopedia Universal

  • Derek Walcott — Walcott at an honorary dinner in Amsterdam, 20 May 2008 Born 23 January 1930 (1930 01 23) (age 81) Castries, Saint Lucia …   Wikipedia

  • Derek Walcott — OBE (* 23. Januar 1930 in Castries, St. Lucia) ist ein karibischer Dichter und Schriftsteller. 1992 erhielt Walcott den Nobelpreis für Literatur und 2011 den T. S. Eliot Prize für seinen Gedichtband White Egrets …   Deutsch Wikipedia

  • Derek Walcott — Saltar a navegación, búsqueda Derek Walcott Derek Walcott (23 de enero de 1930 en Castries, Santa Lucía, país e isla ubicada en las Antillas Menores, en el Mar Caribe) es un destacado poeta y …   Wikipedia Español

  • Derek Alton Walcott — Derek Walcott Pour les articles homonymes, voir Walcott. Derek Walcott Derek Alton Walcott est un poète, dramaturge et …   Wikipédia en Français

  • Walcott — (Derek) (né en 1930) poète et dramaturge sainte lucien d expression anglaise. Poésie: Sea Grapes (autobiographie en vers, 1976), le Royaume de la pomme étoile (1979), Collected Poems 1948 1984 (1986), Heureux le voyageur (1993). Parmi ses nombr.… …   Encyclopédie Universelle

  • Derek Walcott — Pour les articles homonymes, voir Walcott. Derek Walcott Derek Alton Walcott est un poète, dramaturge et artiste saint lucien né …   Wikipédia en Français

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