Editing Derek Walcott (section)

==Career ==
[[File:Derek Walcott, VIII Festival Internacional.jpg|thumb|Walcott at VIII Festival Internacional, 1992]]
[[File:Derek-Walcott-names.ogg|thumb|Derek Walcott reciting his poem "names"]]
After graduation, Walcott moved to Trinidad in 1953, where he became a critic, teacher and journalist.<ref Name="British Council"/> He founded the [[Trinidad Theatre Workshop]] in 1959 and remained active with its board of directors.<ref Name="Academy"/><ref name=als>{{cite magazine|last1=Als|first1=Hilton|author-link=Hilton Als|title=Derek Walcott – a mighty poet has fallen|url=http://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/derek-walcott-a-mighty-poet-has-died|access-date=18 March 2017|magazine=The New Yorker|date=17 March 2017|archive-date=14 November 2019|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20191114034425/https://www.newyorker.com/culture/culture-desk/derek-walcott-a-mighty-poet-has-died|url-status=live}}</ref>

Exploring the Caribbean and its history in a colonialist and post-colonialist context, his collection ''In a Green Night: Poems 1948–1960'' (1962) attracted international attention.<ref Name=pf/> His play ''[[Dream on Monkey Mountain]]'' (1970) was produced on NBC-TV in the United States the year it was published. Makak is the protagonist in this play; and "Makak"s condition represents the condition of the colonized natives under the oppressive forces of the powerful colonizers".<ref>Islam, Md. Manirul (April 2019). "Derek Walcott's ''Dream on Monkey Mountain'': A Complicated Presentation of Postcolonial Condition of the West Indians". ''New Academia''. 8(2).</ref> In 1971 it was produced by the [[Negro Ensemble Company]] off-Broadway in New York City; it won an [[Obie Award]] that year for "Best Foreign Play".<ref>[http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0153558.html Obie Award Listing: ''Dream on Monkey Mountain''], InfoPlease. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160403213937/http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0153558.html |date=3 April 2016 }}.</ref> The following year, Walcott won an [[Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire|OBE]] from the British government for his work.<ref name="Oxford University">{{cite web |url=http://www.ox.ac.uk/about_the_university/university_year/encaenia/past_five_years/honorary06.html |title=Honorary degrees 2006 - University of Oxford |access-date=13 April 2011 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101217065910/http://www.ox.ac.uk/about_the_university/university_year/encaenia/past_five_years/honorary06.html |archive-date=17 December 2010 }}</ref>

He was hired as a teacher by [[Boston University]] in the United States, where he founded the [[Boston Playwrights' Theatre]] in 1981. That year he also received a [[MacArthur Foundation Fellowship]] in the United States. Walcott taught literature and writing at Boston University for more than two decades, publishing new books of poetry and plays on a regular basis. Walcott retired from his position at Boston University in 2007. He became friends with other poets, including the Russian expatriate [[Joseph Brodsky]], who lived and worked in the U.S. after being exiled in the 1970s, and the Irishman [[Seamus Heaney]], who also taught in Boston.<ref name=als/>

Walcott's epic poem ''[[Omeros]]'' (1990), which loosely echoes and refers to characters from the ''[[Iliad]]'', has been critically praised as his "major achievement."<ref name=pf/> The book received praise from publications such as ''[[The Washington Post]]'' and ''[[The New York Times Book Review]]'', which chose ''Omeros'' as one of its "Best Books of 1990".<ref>{{cite news|title=Editors' Choice: The Best Books of 1990|url=https://www.nytimes.com/1990/12/02/books/editors-choice-the-best-books-of-1990.html|access-date=18 March 2017|newspaper=The New York Times|date=2 December 1990|archive-date=17 June 2018|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180617115924/https://www.nytimes.com/1990/12/02/books/editors-choice-the-best-books-of-1990.html|url-status=live}}</ref>

Walcott was awarded the [[Nobel Prize in Literature]] in 1992, the second Caribbean writer to receive the honour after [[Saint-John Perse]], who was born in [[Guadeloupe]], received the award in 1960. The Nobel committee described Walcott's work as "a poetic oeuvre of great luminosity, sustained by a historical vision, the outcome of a multicultural commitment".<ref name=pf/> He won an [[Anisfield-Wolf Book Award]]<ref name="anisfield-wolf.org"/> for Lifetime Achievement in 2004.

His later poetry collections include ''Tiepolo's Hound'' (2000), illustrated with copies of his watercolours;<ref>[http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5936 "Derek Walcott's ''Tiepolo's Hound''"], essay, Academy of American Poets, 18 February 2005. {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20100803205624/http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/5936 |date=3 August 2010 }}.</ref> ''The Prodigal'' (2004), and ''White Egrets'' (2010), which received the T. S. Eliot Prize<ref name=pf/><ref Name="British Council"/> and the 2011 [[OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature]].<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.trinidadexpress.com/news/Derek_Walcott_wins_OCM_Bocas_Prize-121040233.html |title=Derek Walcott wins OCM Bocas Prize |work=[[Trinidad Express]] |date=30 April 2011 |access-date=30 September 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20160315153758/http://www.trinidadexpress.com/news/Derek_Walcott_wins_OCM_Bocas_Prize-121040233.html |archive-date=15 March 2016 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

Derek Walcott held the Elias Ghanem Chair in Creative Writing at the [[University of Nevada, Las Vegas]] in 2007.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.unlv.edu/news/release/poet-playwright-and-nobel-laureate-derek-walcott-speak-unlv-april-19 |title=Poet, Playwright and Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott to Speak at UNLV April 19 |date=6 April 2007 |publisher=UNLV |access-date=12 October 2022 |archive-date=12 October 2022 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221012120941/https://www.unlv.edu/news/release/poet-playwright-and-nobel-laureate-derek-walcott-speak-unlv-april-19 |url-status=live }}</ref> In 2008, Walcott gave the first [[Cola Debrot Lecture]]s<ref>{{cite web|url=https://www.spui25.nl/gedeelde-content/evenementen/lezingen/2008/05/nobelprijs-winnaar-derek-walcott-bezoekt-amsterdam.html?cb|title=Nobelprijs winnaar Derek Walcott bezoekt Amsterdam|website=Spui 25 (Academic Podium of University of Amsterdam)|access-date=9 June 2020|language=nl|archive-date=9 June 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200609065157/https://www.spui25.nl/gedeelde-content/evenementen/lezingen/2008/05/nobelprijs-winnaar-derek-walcott-bezoekt-amsterdam.html?cb|url-status=dead}}</ref> In 2009, Walcott began a three-year distinguished scholar-in-residence position at the [[University of Alberta]]. In 2010, he became Professor of Poetry at the [[University of Essex]].<ref name=UoE>{{cite web|url=http://www.essex.ac.uk/news/event.aspx?e_id=1156|title=Nobel Laureate Derek Walcott is new Professor of Poetry|date=11 December 2009|access-date=10 January 2010|publisher=University of Essex|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20170502010909/http://www.essex.ac.uk/news/event.aspx?e_id=1156|archive-date=2 May 2017}}</ref>

As a part of St Lucia's Independence Day celebrations, in February 2016, he became one of the first knights of the [[Order of Saint Lucia]].<ref name=list>{{cite news|url=http://www.stlucianewsonline.com/list-of-awards-to-be-given-on-independence-day/|title=List of awards to be given on Independence Day|date=22 February 2016|access-date=22 February 2016|work=St Lucia News Online|archive-date=3 December 2020|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20201203013149/https://www.stlucianewsonline.com/list-of-awards-to-be-given-on-independence-day/|url-status=live}}</ref>