Walcott, Derek Walton (1930– )

St Lucian writer, poet, and playwright. His work fuses Caribbean and European, classical and contemporary elements, and deals with the divisions within colonial society and his own search for cultural identity. His works include the long poem Omeros (1990) and his adaptation of Homer's Odyssey for the stage (1992); his Collected Poems were published in 1986. His biography of French impressionist painter Pissarro, Tiepolo's Hound, was published in 2000. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1992.

Walcott was educated at the University of the West Indies. He has taught writing at the universities of Columbia, Yale, and Harvard. He contributed greatly to the development of an indigenous West Indian theatre, and for 25 years ran a theatre in Trinidad. Other plays include Dream on Monkey Mountain (1970), O Babylon! (1978), and Remembrance (1980). His collection of poetry The Bounty appeared in 1997.