Derek Walcott

Banquet speech

Derek Walcott’s speech at the Nobel Banquet, December 10, 1992

Your Majesties, Your Royal Highnesses, Distinguished Representatives of the Nobel Foundation, Honourable Members of the Academies, the Karolinska Institute and Election Committees, Students, Ladies and Gentlemen,

The honour that you pay me is accepted in the one name that comprises all of the supposedly broken languages of the Caribbean. They cohere in this moment, a moment that recognises their endeavour and one which I receive with pride and humility on their behalf. Pride in the continuing struggle of Antillean writers, humility in the glare of representing them by my own evanescent image.

From Les Prix Nobel. The Nobel Prizes 1992, Editor Tore Frängsmyr, [Nobel Foundation], Stockholm, 1993
Copyright © The Nobel Foundation 1992

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