Derek Walcott

Derek Walcott and his siblings were born and raised in Castries, the capital of Saint Lucia. When Walcott and his brother were still infants, their father Warwick—a civil servant and painter—died, leaving his schoolteacher mother to raise the three children on her own. Walcott initially studied painting, but discovered a love early in life for poetry, publishing his first poem when he was 14. He later borrowed $200 from his mother to self-publish his first collection of poetry, which successfully launched his literary career. Walcott earned a scholarship to attend the University College of the West Indies in Jamaica. After he graduated, he moved to Trinidad and began his career as a journalist, writer, and teacher. Walcott divided his career between the Caribbean and the United States, where he taught for many years at Boston University. He co-founded the Trinidad Theater Workshop, to develop and amplify the voices of West Indian playwrights, in 1959, and the Boston Playwrights’ Theater in 1981. As a poet and playwright, Walcott explored Caribbean culture and literature through the history of colonialism. During his long and productive career, Walcott authored 24 books of poetry, 26 plays, and seven works of nonfiction. He received no fewer than 14 awards, including an Obie for Dream on Monkey Mountain, a MacArthur “Genius” grant, and the Nobel Prize for Literature. Walcott married thrice and had three children, one of whom became a painter and another a writer and academic. He died in Saint Lucia at the age of 87.