The Life of Derek Walcott

Literature

Project

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Name: Kyle Campbell

Class: 10E

Teacher: Ms. Rufus

Subject: English Literature

Table of Contents

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The Life of Derek Walcott      

The Plot of Ti-Jean and his Brothers

Fables

The Life of Derek Walcott

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Derek Walcott was born on January 23, 1930 to Alix and Warwick Walcott in St. Lucia, where he was also raised. He had a twin brother, the playwright Roderick Walcott, and a sister, Pamela Walcott.  His father, who painted and wrote poetry, died at the age of 31 from mastoiditis while his wife was pregnant with the twins Derek and Roderick. At 14, Walcott published his first poem, a Miltonic, religious poem, in the newspaper The Voice of St Lucia. Five years later, Walcott had self-published his first two collections with the aid of his mother, who paid for the printing: 25 Poems (1948) and Epitaph for the Young: XII Cantos (1949).

With a scholarship, he studied at the University College of the West Indies in Kingston, Jamaica. After graduation, Walcott moved to Trinidad in 1953, where he became a critic, teacher and journalist. Exploring the Caribbean and its history in a colonialist and post-colonialist context, his collection In a Green Night: Poems 1948–1960 (1962) attracted international attention. His play Dream on Monkey Mountain (1970) was produced on NBC-TV in the United States the year it was published. In 1971 it was produced by the Negro Ensemble Company off-Broadway in New York City. He was hired as a teacher by Boston University in the United States, where he founded the Boston Playwrights' Theatre in 1981. His epic poem Omeros (1990), which loosely echoes and refers to characters from the Iliad, has been critically praised "as Walcott's major achievement." The book received praise from publications such as The Washington Post and The New York Times Book Review, which chose Omeros as one of its "Best Books of 1990".

In 1954 Walcott married Fay Moston, a secretary, but the marriage ended in divorce in 1959. They had a son, the St Lucian painter Peter Walcott. Walcott married a second time to Margaret Maillard in 1962, who worked as an almoner in a hospital, and together they had two daughters, Elizabeth, and Anna; they divorced in 1976. In 1976, Walcott married for a third time, to actress Norline Metivier (divorced in 1993). He was survived by his longtime companion, Sigrid Nama, a former art gallery owner.

Walcott was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1992, the second Caribbean writer to receive the honour after Saint-John Perse, who was born in Guadeloupe, received the award in 1960. The Nobel committee described Walcott's work as "a poetic oeuvre of great luminosity, sustained by a historical vision, the outcome of a multicultural commitment" In addition to his Nobel Prize, Walcott’s honors included a MacArthur Foundation “genius” award, a Royal Society of Literature Award, and, in 1988, the Queen’s Medal for Poetry. He was an honorary member of the American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters.