| Derek Walcott |
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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. Born in Castries , St. Lucia , he won the Nobel Prize For Literature in 1992 . His work, which developed independently of the schools of Magic Realism emerging in both South America and Europe at around the time of his birth, is intensely related to the symbolism of Myth and its relationship to Culture . He is best known for his epic poem ''Omeros'', a reworking of Homer ic story and tradition into a journey around the Caribbean and beyond to the American West and London. 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. He also has an appointment at Boston University where he previously instructed such poets as Glyn Maxwell . 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. Many of them deal, either directly or indirectly, with the liminal status of the West Indies in the postcolonial period. Epistemological , Ontological , Economical , Political , and Social themes make regular appearances in Walcott's plays. In his 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. His epic poem ''Omeros'' exposes the complex cultural strains that converge in his native St. Lucia , celebrating at once the European, Amerindian, and African heritage shared by the islanders. Discussions of epistemological effects of colonization inform plays such as ''Ti-Jean and his Brothers''. One of the eponymous brothers (Mi-Jean) is shown to have much information, but to truly know nothing. Every line Mi-Jean recites is rote knowledge gained from the coloniser, and as such is unable to be synthesized and thus is inapplicable to his existence as colonised person. Walcott's plays weave together a variety of forms; including those of the Folktale , Morality Play , Allegory , Fable , Ritual and Myth ; as well as using emblematic and mythological characters to address issues in non-realistic ways. WORKS Poetry collections
Plays
EXTERNAL LINKS FURTHER READING
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