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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 watercolorist, 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. He has published 17 volumes of poetry, including
Another Life (1973), The Star-Apple Kingdom (1979,
Collected Poems, 1948-1984 (1986), The Arkansas Testament
(1987), and Omeros (1990). His plays include Dream on
Monkey Mountain (1970), Ti-Jean and His Brothers (1958),
The Last Carnival, and The Odyssey: A Stage Version
(1993).
Walcott wrote the story and lyrics for Paul Simon's
musical The Capeman which opened on Broadway January 28, 1998 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.
The Swedish Academy awarded the Nobel Prize for
Literature to Derek Walcott in 1992 for “a poetic oeuvre of great
luminosity, sustained by a historical vision, the outcome of a
multicultural commitment”. Source: © The
Nobel Foundation 1992. |
