Derek Walcott published his first poem in a newspaper at 14

 “The thing I consider very lucky in my life was I knew exactly what I wanted to do. I knew I wanted to be a poet and I knew I wanted to paint.”

Derek Walcott published his first poem in a newspaper at 14 and released his first collection of poetry at 18. His father, who passed away when Walcott was just one, had been a writer and a painter and Walcott, encouraged by his supportive mother, never wanted to do anything else.

Born in Saint Lucia, a former British colony, the experience of growing up on the Caribbean island ran deeply through Walcott’s life and work. Walcott’s poems and plays often interrogate the tension between his heritage of Caribbean, African and European cultures and revolve around a search for identity.

Walcott received the 1992 Nobel Prize in Literature “for a poetic oeuvre of great luminosity, sustained by a historical vision, the outcome of a multicultural commitment." When awarding the prize the Swedish Academy said in his literary works Walcott “laid a course for his own cultural environment, but through them he speaks to each and every one of us.”