Page 12 - ARUBA TODAY

A12 WORLD NEWS
Monday 20 March 2017

Nobel laureate Derek Walcott, Caribbean poet, dies at 87

GUY ELLIS Lucia, then a sleepy out-
DAVID McFADDEN post of the British empire.
Associated Press “Colonials, we began with
CASTRIES, St. Lucia (AP) — this malarial enervation:
Derek Walcott, a Nobel that nothing could ever
prize-winning poet known be built among these rot-
for capturing the essence ting shacks, barefooted
of his native Caribbean, backyards and moulting
died Friday on the island of shingles; that being poor,
St. Lucia. He was 87. we already had the the-
“Derek Alton Walcott, ater of our lives. In that
poet, playwright, and simple schizophrenic boy-
painter died peacefully hood one could lead two
today, Friday 17th March, lives: the interior life of po-
2017, at his home in Cap etry, and the outward life
Estate, Saint Lucia,” said a of action and dialect,” he
family statement. It said the wrote.
funeral would be held in St. Early on, he struggled with
Lucia and details would be questions of race and his
announced shortly. passion for British poetry,
The prolific and versatile describing it as a “wrestling
poet received the Nobel contradiction of being
Prize in literature in 1992. white in mind and black in
The academy cited the body, as if the flesh were
“great luminosity” of his In this Tuesday April 1, 2014, file photo, the recipient of the 1992 Nobel Prize in Literature Derek coal from which the spir-
writings including the 1990 Walcott attends a news conference in Mexico City. Walcott, known for capturing the essence of it like tormented smoke
his native Caribbean and became the region’s most internationally famous writer, died early Fri-
“Omeros,” a 64-chapter day, March 17, 2017, on the island of St. Lucia, according to his son, Peter. writhed to escape.” But
Caribbean epic that it (AP Photo/ Berenice Bautista) he overcame that inner
praised as “majestic.” struggle, writing: “Once
“In him, West Indian culture With passions ranging from friend and longtime U.S. poets.” we have lost our wish to be
has found its great poet,” watercolor painting to publisher, praised the poet Walcott was born in St. Lu- white, we develop a long-
the Swedish academy said teaching to theater, Wal- as “the great lyric voice of cia’s capital of Castries on ing to become black.”
in awarding the $1.2 million cott’s work was widely the Caribbean.” Jan. 23, 1930 to a Method- At 14, he published his
prize to Walcott. praised for its depth and “He was a brilliant thinker ist schoolteacher mother first work, a 44-line poem
St. Lucia Prime Minister Al- bold use of metaphor, about human predica- and a civil servant father, called “1944,” in a local
len Chastanet said flags and its mix of sensuousness ments, historical and per- an aspiring artist who died newspaper. While still in his
throughout the island and technical prowess. He sonal, really the last English when Walcott and his twin teens, he self-published a
would be lowered to half- compared his feeling for language poet with the gift brother, Roderick, were collection of 25 poems. At
staff to honor Walcott, one poetry to a religious avo- to match what feels like babies. His mother, Alix, in- 20, his play “Henri Chris-
of the most renowned fig- cation. 19th century ambitions,” stilled the love of language tophe” was produced by
ures to emerge from the Calling the poet “the great Galassi said. in her children, often recit- an arts guild he co-found-
small country. lyric voice of the Caribbe- Walcott himself proudly ing Shakespeare and read- ed.
“It is a great loss to Saint Lu- an,” celebrated his role as a Ca- ing aloud other classics. He left St. Lucia to immerse
cia,” he said. “It is a great Soviet exile poet Joseph ribbean writer. In his autobiographical himself in literature at Ja-
loss to the world.” Brodsky, who won the No- “I am primarily, absolutely a essay, “What the Twilight maica’s University College
Walcott, who was of Af- bel literature prize in 1987, Caribbean writer,” he once Says,” he wrote: “Both the of the West Indies. In the
rican, Dutch and English once complained that said during a 1985 inter- patois of the street and the 1950s, he studied in New
ancestry, said his writing re- some critics relegated Wal- view published in The Paris language of the classroom York and founded a the-
flected the “very rich and cott to regional status be- Review. “The English lan- hid the elation of discov- ater in Trinidad’s Port-of-
complicated experience” cause of “an unwillingness guage is nobody’s special ery. If there was nothing, Spain.
of life in the Caribbean. ... to admit that the great property. It is the property there was everything to be For much of his life, Wal-
His dazzling, painterly work poet of the English lan- of the imagination: it is the made. With this prodigious cott, who taught at Boston
earned him a reputation as guage is a black man.” property of the language ambition one began.” University for many years,
one of the greatest writers Jonathan Galassi, presi- itself. I have never felt in- Walcott once described divided his time between
of the second half of the dent of Farrar, Straus & Gi- hibited in trying to write as straddling “two worlds” the United States and the
20th century. roux who was Walcott’s well as the greatest English during his childhood in St. Caribbean.q