Poet and Nobel Laureate of the Caribbean, Dies at 87

(ST Lucia News Online, Friday, March 17, 2017) Sir Derek Walcott KCSL OBE OCC passed away at his home about 7:30 a.m. today after a prolonged illness.

He was 87.

His daughters Elizabeth Walcott-Hackshaw and Anna Walcott-Hardy confirmed his death in a press release dispatched this morning.

“Derek Alton Walcott, poet, playwright, and painter died peacefully today, Friday 17th March, 2017, at his home in Cap Estate, Saint Lucia. He was 87 years old and will be greatly missed by his family and friends. The funeral will be held in Saint Lucia and details will be announced shortly,” the release states.

Walcott was a Saint Lucian poet and playwright. He received the 1992 Nobel Prize in Literature. He was Professor of Poetry at the University of Essex from 2010 to 2013.

His works include the Homeric epic poem Omeros (1990), which many critics view “as Walcott’s major achievement.”

In addition to having won the Nobel, Walcott has won 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 2011 T. S. Eliot Prize for his book of poetry White Egrets and the Griffin Trust For Excellence In Poetry Lifetime Recognition Award in 2015.