Derek Walcott
Facts
Photo from the Nobel Foundation archive.
Derek Walcott
The Nobel Prize in Literature 1992
Born: 23 January 1930, Castries, Saint Lucia
Died: 17 March 2017, Gros-Islet, Saint Lucia
Residence at the time of the award: Saint Lucia
Prize motivation: “for a poetic oeuvre of great luminosity, sustained by a historical vision, the outcome of a multicultural commitment”
Language: English
Prize share: 1/1
Life
West Indian poet and playwright Derek Walcott made his debut as an 18-year-old with In a Green Night. For many years he divided his time among Saint Lucia; Boston University, where he taught; and Trinidad, where he managed a theater. Walcott also worked as an artist and combined his poetry with painting in the volume Tiepolo’s Hound (2005).
Work
Derek Walcott’s works often deal with Caribbean history, while he simultaneous searches for vestiges of the colonial era. Western literary canon is revised and given a completely new form, as in the poetry collection Omeros (1990). In his writing Walcott explores the complexity of living and working in two cultures.
Watch the 2022 Nobel Prize announcements
COMING UP
Watch the live stream of the announcements.
