WRITER

Derek Walcott

1930 - 2017

Photo of Derek Walcott

Icon of person Derek Walcott

Sir Derek Alton Walcott OM (23 January 1930 – 17 March 2017) was a Saint Lucian poet and playwright. He received the 1992 Nobel Prize in Literature. His works include the Homeric epic poem Omeros (1990), which many critics view "as Walcott's major achievement." In addition to winning the Nobel Prize, Walcott received many literary awards over the course of his career, including an Obie Award in 1971 for his play Dream on Monkey Mountain, a MacArthur Foundation "genius" award, a Royal Society of Literature Award, the Queen's Medal for Poetry, the inaugural OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature, the 2010 T. S. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Derek Walcott has received more than 1,355,779 page views. His biography is available in 83 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 80 in 2019). Derek Walcott is the 682nd most popular writer (up from 1,020th in 2019), the 2nd most popular biography from Saint Lucia (down from 1st in 2019) and the most popular Saint Lucian Writer.

Derek Walcott is most famous for his poem "Omeros" which was published in 1990.

Memorability Metrics

  • 1.4M

    Page Views (PV)

  • 64.53

    Historical Popularity Index (HPI)

  • 83

    Languages Editions (L)

  • 7.58

    Effective Languages (L*)

  • 5.52

    Coefficient of Variation (CV)

Notable Works

Omeros
Literary Criticism
A poem in seven books of circular narrative design in which Achille, the protagonist, sets out on a fishing expedition and is carried back across the centuries to his ancestral home on the West African coast.
19904 / 5
The bounty
1997
What the twilight says
1998
Another life
Authors
1973
The Prodigal
Europe
A new marvel from a Nobel Prize winning poet. Do not diminish in my memory..villages of absolutely no importance, ... . . Hoard, cherish..your negligible existence, your unrecorded history..of unambitious syntax, your clean pools..of unpolluted light over close stones. The Prodigal, Derek Walcott's new collection, is a dazzling odyssey for the twenty-first century. Beginning on America's East Coast, the poem journeys restlessly through the European continent, exploring the inheritance of the Old World upon Walcott's native St Lucia, and sees the poet wondering about his own sense of abandonment, as if to leave a place is to lose it. The Prodigal is a compelling steer between exile and belonging, Europe and the New World, wanderlust and the inevitable pull of home.
20042 / 5
Remembrance and Pantomime
Drama
1980
The Prodigal
Poetry, West Indians, Exiles
2004
Omeros
Trinidadian and tobagonian poetry (english), Pr9272.9.w3 o44 1990, Pr9272.9.w329 o44 1990
1990
Another life
Poetry, Authors, Poetry (poetic works by one author)
1973
Prentice Hall Literature -- Gold
British and irish drama, Classical Literature, Conflict of generations
High School level
1994
Remembrance and Pantomime
West Indian drama (English), Drama (dramatic works by one author)
1980
Prentice Hall Literature--World Masterpieces
Readers (Secondary), English literature, American literature
9-10th grade
1991

Among WRITERS

Among writers, Derek Walcott ranks 682 out of 7,302. Before him are Maurice Blanchot, Sei Shōnagon, Bernard Gui, André Chénier, Novatian, and Phillis Wheatley. After him are Joseph of Anchieta, Jacinto Benavente, Claudian, Aleksey Nikolayevich Tolstoy, Kang Youwei, and Jean Froissart.

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Contemporaries

Among people born in 1930, Derek Walcott ranks 45. Before him are Gylmar dos Santos Neves, Edsger W. Dijkstra, Gary Becker, Bernie Ecclestone, Biljana Plavšić, and Akira Suzuki. After him are Félix Guattari, Lorin Maazel, Robert Wagner, Jean Rochefort, Armin Mueller-Stahl, and Carlos Kleiber. Among people deceased in 2017, Derek Walcott ranks 34. Before him are Mário Soares, Martin Landau, Hans Georg Dehmelt, Roman Herzog, Alexei Alexeyevich Abrikosov, and Hiroto Muraoka. After him are Tzvetan Todorov, Louise Hay, Emmanuelle Riva, Lotfi A. Zadeh, Jean Rochefort, and Adnan Khashoggi.

Others Born in 1930

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Others Deceased in 2017

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In Saint Lucia

Among people born in Saint Lucia, Derek Walcott ranks 2 out of 11. Before him are Empress Joséphine (1763). After him are W. Arthur Lewis (1915), Philip J. Pierre (1954), Joseph Marcell (1948), Pearlette Louisy (1946), Neville Cenac (1939), Kenny Anthony (1951), Stephenson King (1958), Chris Boucher (1993), Levern Spencer (1984), and Julien Alfred (2001).

Others born in Saint Lucia

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Among WRITERS In Saint Lucia

Among writers born in Saint Lucia, Derek Walcott ranks 1. 

Saint Lucian born Writers

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