Derek Walcott

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Derek Walcott (2008)

Sir Derek Walcott KCSL , OCC , OBE , TC (born January 23, 1930 in Castries , St. Lucia , † March 17, 2017 in Gros Islet , St. Lucia) was a Lucian- British poet and writer . In 1992 Walcott received the Nobel Prize in Literature and in 2011 the TS Eliot Prize for his book of poetry White Egrets . He also received the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award in 2004 for his life's work .

Life and writing

Walcott combined Caribbean and African roots in his work, but built on the tradition of Anglo-American poets. His theater work was also heavily influenced by Bertolt Brecht . His best-known work is the verse epic Omeros (1990), an adaptation of Homer from the cultural perspective of the Caribbean .

Walcott published his first poem when he was fourteen. At the age of nineteen he self-published the two volumes of poetry 25 Poems (1948) and Epitaph for the Young: XII Cantos (1949). He studied at the University of the West Indies in Kingston and then moved to Trinidad in 1953 to work as a critic, lecturer and journalist. Six years later, Walcott founded the Trinidad Theater Workshop , which produces and performs his own and other dramas, and continues to serve on the board. In 1981 he founded the Boston Playwrights' Theater at Boston University in the USA. Walcott taught literature and writing there until his retirement in 2007.

Walcott's preoccupation with Caribbean history and culture during and after the colonial period is reflected in the In a Green Night: Poems 1948-1960 (1962) collection , which received international acclaim, as did the Tiepolo's Hound (2000) and The Prodigal (2004 ) collections ). The Prodigal ( The Prodigal Son ) is a cycle of poems in which Walcott embarks on a mental journey, primarily along places he actually visited ( Boston , Zermatt , Milan and others), and then - as in the parable of the prodigal son - to to return home to the roots and sources of his poetry: to the cultures and people of St. Lucia. White Egrets (2010), whose “emotional freshness” and “technical finesse” were praised, was honored with the TS Eliot Prize , the highest award for poets in Great Britain and Ireland.

In 1993 Walcott was awarded the Trinity Cross , the highest order of Trinidad at the time. From 2009 he held a visiting professorship at the University of Alberta . Walcott had a close friendship with the Nigerian writer Ben Okri .

Awards and honors

Works

Poetry collections

  • 1948 25 poems
  • 1949 Epitaph for the Young: Xll Cantos
  • 1951 poems
  • 1962 In a Green Night: Poems 1948-1960
  • 1964 Selected Poems
  • 1965 The Castaway and Other Poems
  • 1969 The Gulf and Other Poems
  • 1973 Another Life
  • 1976 Sea Grapes
  • 1979 The Star-Apple Kingdom
  • 1981 Selected Poetry
  • 1981 The Fortunate Traveler
  • 1983 The Caribbean Poetry of Derek Walcott and the Art of Romare Bearden
  • 1984 Midsummer
  • 1986 Collected Poems, 1948-1984
    • Tales from the Islands - poems, German by Klaus Martens; Hanser, Munich 1993, ISBN 3-446-17450-8 .
    • In it: The Antilles: Fragments of Epic Memory. (Nobel Prize Speech at the Swedish Academy), pp. 7–24.
  • 1987 The Arkansas Testament
  • 1990 Omeros
  • 1997 The Bounty
  • 2000 Tiepolo's Hound
  • 2004 The Prodigal
  • 2010 White Egrets
    • White Heron, bilingual English / German; German by Werner von Koppenfels; Hanser, Munich 2012, ISBN 978-3-446-23867-1 .

Dramas

  • (1970) Dream on Monkey Mountain
  • (1970) Ti-Jean and His Brothers
  • (1980) pantomime
  • (1997) The Capeman - with Paul Simon

Essays

  • (1998) What the Twilight Says

literature

Web links

Commons : Derek Walcott  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ^ William Grimes: Derek Walcott, Poet and Nobel Laureate of the Caribbean, Dies at 87. In: The New York Times . March 17, 2017, accessed March 17, 2017 .
  2. ↑ Patrick Anthony: Eucharistic symbols in Derek Walcott's "The Prodigal" . In: Catholic Chronicle , vol. 2007, No. 1, p. 9 (part 1) and No. 2, p. 16 (part 2).
  3. ↑ Honorary Members: Derek Walcott. American Academy of Arts and Letters, accessed March 26, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Walcott, Derek
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Lucian-British writer and Nobel Prize for Literature
DATE OF BIRTH January 23, 1930
PLACE OF BIRTH Castries , St. Lucia
DATE OF DEATH 17th March 2017
Place of death Gros Islet , St. Lucia