Derek (Alton) Walcott - Walcott as playwright and theorist, Works, Further reading

Poet and playwright, born in Castries, St Lucia, West Indies. He studied at the University of the West Indies, Jamaica, and has lived mostly in Trindad, where he founded the Trindad Theatre Workshop in 1959. He produced three early but assured volumes, In A Green Night (1962), The Castaway (1965), and The Gulf (1969). Later works include Collected Poems 1948–84 (1986), the epic Omeros (1990), The Bounty (1997), Tiepelo's Hound (2000), a fictionalized account of the life of painter Camille Pissaro, and The Prodigal (2005). What the Twilight Says: Essays appeared in 1998. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1992.

Derek Alton Walcott (born January 23, 1930) is a poet, playwright, writer and visual artist who was in the vanguard of the post-colonial school of English language writing.

Walcott founded the Trinidad Theatre Workshop in 1959, which has produced his plays (and others) since that time, and remains active with its Board of Directors.

Walcott as playwright and theorist

Walcott has published more than twenty plays. The majority of these plays have been produced by the Trinidad Theatre Workshop, and have also been widely staged elsewhere. Epistemological, ontological, economical, political, and social themes make regular appearances in Walcott's plays.

In his 1970 essay on art (and specifically theatre) in his native region, What the Twilight Says: An Overture (published in Dream on Monkey Mountain and Other Plays; see bibliography), Walcott bemoans the lasting effects of over 400 years of colonial rule. In this manner, Walcott shifts his poetic language between formal English and patois to highlight the linguistic dexterity of the Caribbean people. While recognising the profound psychological and material wrongs of the colonial project, Walcott simultaneously celebrates the hybridisation of Antillean cultures.

Discussions of epistemological effects of colonization inform plays such as Ti-Jean and his Brothers and Patomine.

Walcott probes the colonial dialectic in his two-hander Pantomime. In the play, Walcott revisions the story of Robinson Crusoe / Friday in an effort to destabilize the colonial power constructs. Reversing the roles of master / servant, Walcott temporarily lends to Trinidadian Jackson, a guest house factotum and calypso singer, the role of Crusoe, with Harry, a British ex-patriot and owner, the identity of “Thursday,” thus resetting Daniel Defoe's legend in pre-colonial days. Recalling his fascination with the Edenic concept on naming ("Muse" 3-5), Walcott highlights the problem that faces the Caribbean writer by having Jackson re-appropriate the material objects around him, re-christening them in a pseudo-African language, calling the table “patamba,” the chair “banda,” etc, recalling the poesía negra's use of jitanjáfora mentioned earlier. Walcott writes in English, the language of Trinidad, but he also makes full use of the local dialects, or what Barbadian writer Edward Kamau Brathwaite calls “nation language,” and portrays Jackson as code-switching throughout the play to reveal his culture’s linguistic dexterity.

Walcott's plays weave together a variety of forms;

Works

Poetry collections

1948 25 Poems 1949 Epitaph for the Young: Xll Cantos 1951 Poems 1962 In a Green Night: Poems 1948–60 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 Traveller 1983 The Caribbean Poetry of Derek Walcott and the Art of Romare Bearden 1984 Midsummer 1986 Collected Poems, 1948-1984 1987 The Arkansas Testament 1990 Omeros 1997 The Bounty 2000 Tiepolo's Hound 2004 The Prodigal

Plays

(1950) Henri Christophe: A Chronicle in Seven Scenes (1951) Harry Dernier: A Play for Radio Production (1953) Wine of the Country (1954) The Sea at Dauphin: A Play in One Act (1957) Ione (1958) Drums and Colours: An Epic Drama (1958) Ti-Jean and His Brothers (1966) Malcochon: or, Six in the Rain (1967) Dream on Monkey Mountain (1970) In a Fine Castle (1974) The Joker of Seville (1974) The Charlatan (1976) O Baby! (1977) Remembrance (1978) Pantomime (1980) The Joker of Seville and O Babylon!: Two Plays (1982) The Isle Is Full of Noises (1986) Three Plays (The Last Carnival, Beef, No Chicken, and A Branch of the Blue Nile) (1991) Steel (1993) Odyssey: A Stage Version (1997) The Capeman (lyrics, in collaboration with Paul Simon)

Further reading

Breslin, Paul. ISBN 0-374-50860-7 Nobel Prize in Literature: Laureates (1976-2000)

1976: Bellow | 1977: Aleixandre | 1978: Singer | 1979: Elytis | 1980: Miłosz | 1981: Canetti | 1982: García Márquez | 1983: Golding | 1984: Seifert | 1985: Simon | 1986: Soyinka | 1987: Brodsky | 1988: Mahfouz | 1989: Cela | 1990: Paz | 1991: Gordimer | 1992: Walcott | 1993: Morrison | 1994: Oe | 1995: Heaney | 1996: Szymborska | 1997: Fo | 1998: Saramago | 1999: Grass | 2000: Gao Complete List | Laureates (1901-1925) | Laureates (1926-1950) | Laureates (1951-1975) |