Walcott's Biography & Works

"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 traveller 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." Walcott received the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1992 for his work: "for a poetic oeuvre of great luminosity, sustained by a historical vision, the outcome of a multicultural commitment."

-Texts & picture borrowed from the Nobel e-museum. See Source Page.

"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 From Nobel Lectures, Literature 1991-1995, Editor Sture Allén, World Scientific Publishing Co., Singapore, 1997 Poems 1992– The Bounty. Faber: London; and Farrar, Straus & Giroux: New York, 1997 Tiepolo's Hound. Farrar, Straus & Giroux: New York, 2000   Drama 1992– The Odyssey. Faber: London; and Farrar, Straus & Giroux: New York, 1993 The Haitian Trilogy. Farrar, Straus & Giroux: New York, 2002   Essays 1992– What the Twilight Says, Farrar, Straus & Giroux: New York, 1998   Secondary Literature Burnett, Paula, Derek Walcott: Politics and Poetics. University Press of Florida: Gainesville, FL, 2001 King, Bruce, Derek Walcott: a Caribbean life. Oxford University Press: Oxford, 2000 King, Bruce, Derek Walcott & West Indian drama: "not only a playwright but a company" - the Trinidad Theatre Workshop, 1959–1993. Clarendon Press: Oxford, 1995 Thieme, John, Derek Walcott. Manchester University Press: Manchester, 1999 Walcott, Derek & Baer, William, Conversations with Derek Walcott. University Press of Mississippi: Jackson, 1996"