born Jan. 23, 1930, Castries, Saint Lucia
West Indian poet and playwright.
Of mixed black, Dutch, and English descent, Walcott was educated in Saint Lucia and Jamaica. After 1958 he lived in Trinidad and the U.S. Most of his works explore the Caribbean cultural experience. He is best known for his poetry; in volumes such as In a Green Night (1962), The Gulf (1969), Another Life (1973), The Star-Apple Kingdom (1979), The Fortunate Traveller (1981), and The Bounty (1997), Walcott's erudition is submerged in sweeping rhythmic and sensuous sonorities. His epic poem Omeros (1990) is a retelling of Homer's Odyssey in a 20th-century Caribbean setting. Of his approximately 30 plays, the best known are Dream on Monkey Mountain (produced 1967), Ti-Jean and His Brothers (1958), and Pantomime (1978). In 1992 he was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature.