Walcott, Derek, 1930–, West Indian dramatist and poet, b. Castries, St. Lucia, grad. Univ. College of West Indies, Mona, Jamaica, 1954. His grandfathers were both white, one of English, the other of Dutch extraction; his grandmothers were both brown-skinned West Indians of African background. He has spent most of his life in various parts of the West Indies, including St. Thomas, Barbados, Grenada, and for a long period Trinidad, where he was a journalist and founded the Trinidad Theatre Workshop. Walcott's meticulously honed poems and evocative dramas exalt the English language while also using a rich mix of Latin, French, and patois. Skillfully fusing folk culture and oral tradition with the classical and avant-garde, he writes eloquently of the history, landscape, everyday life, and multiracial peoples of the islands. He also examines of his own African and European heritage, addressing personal conflicts, many of which arise from his mixed-race background.

Often focusing on West Indian folk traditions, Walcott's plays include Dream on Monkey Mountain (1970), The Joker of Seville (1975), Remembrance: Pantomime (1980), A Branch of the Blue Nile (1986), The Odyssey (1992), and The Capeman (1997), a musical (and Broadway flop) written with Paul Simon. Simon, Paul, 1941–, American singer, songwriter, and guitarist, b. Newark, N.J. A polished and intelligent folk-rock lyricist and performer, he first gained fame as half of Simon and Garfunkel.
..... Click the link for more information. Walcott's verse collections include the breakthrough In a Green Night (1962), which first brought him to international attention, and the autobiographical Another Life (1973) as well as Sea Grapes (1976), Midsummer (1984), and The Bounty (1997). His epic poem Omeros (1990) echoes and reimagines Homer's Iliad and Odyssey as it examines the Caribbean's colonial past and complex present. Tiepolo's Hound (2001), in which he interweaves his own story with that of the St. Thomas–born painter Camille Pissarro Pissarro, Camille (kämē`yə pēsärō`), 1830–1903, French impressionist painter, b. St.
..... Click the link for more information. , and The Prodigal (2004), the poet's memoir of journey and return and a meditation on fame and death, are also book-length narrative poems. Walcott is also a skilled realist painter, whose cover art and illustrations have sometimes accompanied his poetry. He lives in St. Lucia and the United States, where he has taught at several universities. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1992.

Bibliography

See biography by B. A. King (2000); W. Baer, Conversations with Derek Walcott (1996); studies by N. Thomas (1980), R. Terada (1992), R. D. Hamner (1981, rev. ed. 1993) and as ed. (1993), B. A. King (1995), and J. L. Espejo and J. M. P. Fernández, ed. (2001).

Walcott, Derek (Alton)

(born Jan. 23, 1930, Castries, Saint Lucia) West Indian poet and playwright. Walcott was educated in Saint Lucia and Jamaica, and after 1958 he lived in Trinidad and the U.S. Many of his works explore the Caribbean cultural experience. He is best known for his poetry; in volumes such as In a Green Night (1962), The Gulf (1969), Another Life (1973), The Star-Apple Kingdom (1979), The Fortunate Traveller (1981), and The Bounty (1997), Walcott's erudition is submerged in sweeping rhythmic and sensuous sonorities. His epic poem Omeros (1990) is a retelling of Homer's Iliad and Odyssey in a 20th-century Caribbean setting. Tiepolo's Hound (2000) is a poetic biography of West Indian-born French painter Camille Pissarro. Of Walcott's approximately 30 plays, the best-known are Ti-Jean and His Brothers (1958), Dream on Monkey Mountain (produced 1967), and Pantomime (1978). In 1992 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.