Author Guide · Poetry & Drama
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Derek Walcott was born in Castries, Saint Lucia, in January 1930, one of twins, and his father, a civil servant who painted, died before the boys turned two. At eighteen he published his first book, 25 Poems, at his own expense. In 1959 he founded the Trinidad Theatre Workshop, and in 1990 he published Omeros, an epic that gives Homer’s names to St Lucian fishermen. Two years later he won the Nobel Prize in Literature. He wrote poetry and plays for almost seventy years, and died at home in Saint Lucia in 2017. This guide covers his 12 key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 12 key books · 1962–2010 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Derek Walcott’s best-known book is Omeros (1990), a book-length Caribbean epic. His other key works include Another Life (1973), The Star-Apple Kingdom (1979), the play collection Dream on Monkey Mountain (1970) and White Egrets (2010), which won the T.S. Eliot Prize. Start with The Star-Apple Kingdom: it is short and holds two of his most quoted poems.
Where to Start with Derek Walcott
If you want a short way in
→ The Fortunate Traveller (1981) — “The Schooner Flight” and “The Sea Is History” in one slim book.
If you want his masterpiece
→ Omeros (1990) — the 1990 epic, set mostly in St Lucia.
If you want his life story
→ Another Life (1973) — the book-length poem about his youth and his choice of poetry over painting.
If you want his theatre
→ Dream on Monkey Mountain (1970) — the Obie-winning play and three others.
12 Derek Walcott Books, in Order
In a Green Night
His first collection from a major London publisher, Jonathan Cape, gathering twelve years of poems written in the Caribbean. It includes “A Far Cry from Africa”, about being torn between his African and English inheritances, and “Ruins of a Great House”, set among the remains of a colonial estate.
The Castaway
Poems built around the figure of the castaway, a man alone on an island making a world from what washes up. Walcott returns several times to Robinson Crusoe, in “Crusoe’s Island” and other poems, as an image of the Caribbean writer starting from scratch.
Dream on Monkey Mountain
The title play, first staged in 1967, follows Makak, an old charcoal-burner on a West Indian mountain, through a dream in which he becomes an African king. It was broadcast on NBC in 1970 and won an Obie Award for best foreign play after its 1971 off-Broadway run with the Negro Ensemble Company. The volume also includes Ti-Jean and His Brothers, based on a St Lucian folk tale.
Another Life
A book-length autobiographical poem about growing up in Castries: his apprenticeship to the painter Harold Simmons (“Harry”), his friendship with the painter Dunstan St Omer (“Gregorias”), his first love (“Anna”) and his slow realisation that he would be a writer rather than a painter. A fully annotated edition appeared in 2004.
Sea Grapes
The collection that opens with the title poem, in which a sail on the horizon calls up Odysseus on his way home, an early sign of the Homeric theme of Omeros. It also contains “Love After Love”, now one of his most widely shared poems.
The Star-Apple Kingdom
A short collection of long poems. “The Schooner Flight” is spoken by Shabine, a sailor of mixed race who leaves Trinidad on a schooner; “The Sea Is History” answers the claim that the Caribbean has no history; the title poem is set in Jamaica in the late 1970s.
The Fortunate Traveller
Published the year he began teaching at Boston University, the book is arranged in sections headed “North” and “South”, moving between the United States, Europe and the Caribbean. Several deal with the poet as a traveller between rich and poor countries, including the title poem about an official who works on famine relief.
Omeros
An epic in seven books and sixty-four chapters, written in loose three-line stanzas that recall Dante’s terza rima. The fishermen Achille and Hector fight over Helen, a housemaid who also stands for the island, while the wounded Philoctete, the blind Seven Seas and the retired English officer Major Plunkett carry the island’s colonial history. Walcott appears in it himself. It won the WH Smith Literary Award in 1991, and in 2014 his own stage version played at Shakespeare’s Globe in London.
The Bounty
His first collection after the Nobel Prize. The long title poem is an elegy for his mother, Alix, a teacher who had raised the twins alone, and the shorter poems that follow stay with St Lucian landscapes and with grief.
Tiepolo’s Hound
A book-length poem in couplets that tells the life of the painter Camille Pissarro, born on the Caribbean island of St Thomas, who left for Paris. Alongside it runs Walcott’s own search for a white dog he once saw in a Venetian painting. The book reproduces many of Walcott’s own paintings.
The Prodigal
A long poem in fragments that follows an ageing poet through Europe, especially Italy and Switzerland, and back to the Caribbean. It reflects on old age, on the deaths of friends and on whether a poet from a small island can still be at home in the old world.
White Egrets
His last major collection, written in his late seventies: poems about age, the deaths of friends, love late in life and the changing landscape of St Lucia, with the egrets of the title moving through the fields. The judges of the T.S. Eliot Prize, which it won in January 2011, called it “moving and technically flawless”; it also won the OCM Bocas Prize for Caribbean Literature.
In What Order to Read Derek Walcott
None of his books continues from another, so you can start anywhere. Read in publication order, though, and you can watch one idea grow: the Caribbean writer who has to build a literature from what the islands already have. It runs from the castaway poems of the 1960s through Another Life to the full epic of Omeros.
If Omeros feels too long to begin with, read The Star-Apple Kingdom or Sea Grapes first; they are short and show the voice and the themes. Read White Egrets last, as the late view back over the whole career.
A reading path
1. The Star-Apple Kingdom (1979)
2. Another Life (1973)
3. Dream on Monkey Mountain (1970)
4. Omeros (1990)
5. White Egrets (2010)
Everything Else Derek Walcott Published
Beyond the 12 key books: 15 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Other poetry
6
6 books · 1948–2016
- 194825 Poemshis first book, published at his own expense
- 1949Epitaph for the Young: XII Cantosan early long poem
- 1969The Gulfhis third Cape collection
- 1984Midsummera sequence of numbered, untitled poems
- 1987The Arkansas Testamentpoems divided into “Here” and “Elsewhere”
- 2016Morning, Paraminpoems paired with paintings by Peter Doig
Selected and collected poems
3
3 books · 1986–2014
- 1986Collected Poems, 1948–1984the first big collected edition
- 2007Selected Poemsedited by Edward Baugh
- 2014The Poetry of Derek Walcott 1948–2013selected by Glyn Maxwell
Other plays
4
4 books · 1974–1997
- 1974The Joker of Sevillea musical version of the Don Juan story
- 1978Pantomimea two-hander that reverses the roles of Crusoe and Friday
- 1993The Odyssey: A Stage Versionwritten for the Royal Shakespeare Company
- 1997The Capemanbook and lyrics, written with Paul Simon
Essays
2
2 books · 1993–1998
- 1993The Antilles: Fragments of Epic Memoryhis Nobel lecture
- 1998What the Twilight Sayscollected essays
The years · 1930–2017
Quick facts about Derek Walcott
- Known for
- He is known for giving the Caribbean an epic of its own in Omeros, and for poems and plays that join English literary tradition to the speech, landscape and history of the islands.
- 1930
- Born in Castries, Saint Lucia
- 1959
- Founds the Trinidad Theatre Workshop
- 1973
- Another Life
- 1990
- Omeros
- 1992
- Nobel Prize in Literature
- 2017
- Dies at home in Saint Lucia
- Born
- 23 January 1930, Castries, Saint Lucia; twin brother of the playwright Roderick Walcott
- Died
- 17 March 2017, Cap Estate, Saint Lucia, aged 87
- Education
- St Mary’s College, Castries; University College of the West Indies, Jamaica
- Theatre
- Founded the Trinidad Theatre Workshop (1959) and Boston Playwrights’ Theatre (1981)
- Taught
- Boston University, 1981–2007; later Professor of Poetry at the University of Essex
- Honours
- MacArthur Fellowship (1981), Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry (1988), Nobel Prize in Literature (1992)
- Also
- A painter all his life, trained under Harold Simmons
The red mark is 1990: Omeros, his Caribbean epic, two years before the Nobel Prize.
How Derek Walcott Writes: Homer in the Caribbean
Walcott trained as a painter before he was a poet, and kept painting watercolours all his life. It shows in how much of his verse is about light, colour and the exact look of a bay or a hillside. Another Life is the story of the choice between the two arts, and Tiepolo’s Hound is printed with his own paintings.
He used the strictest forms of English and European poetry for Caribbean subjects. Omeros is written in three-line stanzas that echo Dante, and gives Homer’s names to St Lucian fishermen and a housemaid; “The Schooner Flight” puts long rhymed lines into the voice of a Trinidadian sailor. He moves between standard English and the English and French Creole of the islands, often in the same poem.
History is the other constant. In “The Sea Is History” and in his Nobel lecture he answers the idea that the Caribbean has no history or monuments by pointing to the sea, the landscape and the people themselves. His plays, written for his own company in Trinidad, do the same on stage with folk tales, Carnival and Creole speech.
Watch
Derek Walcott in Conversation with Christian Campbell
English professor Christian Campbell interviews Derek Walcott at Hart House Theatre in Toronto on 23 November 2010, covering identity, culture and language. From the official TVO Docs channel.
Frequently asked questions about Derek Walcott’s books
How many books has Derek Walcott written?
More than twenty books of poetry, counting selected and collected editions, and more than twenty-five plays, plus essays. This page covers his 12 key books, from In a Green Night (1962) to White Egrets (2010); the rest are listed under “Everything else”.
What are Derek Walcott’s books in order?
In a Green Night (1962), The Castaway (1965), Dream on Monkey Mountain and Other Plays (1970), Another Life (1973), Sea Grapes (1976), The Star-Apple Kingdom (1979), The Fortunate Traveller (1981), Omeros (1990), The Bounty (1997), Tiepolo’s Hound (2000), The Prodigal (2004) and White Egrets (2010).
Where should I start with Derek Walcott?
The Star-Apple Kingdom (1979). It is short and contains “The Schooner Flight” and “The Sea Is History”. If you want to go straight to the big book, start Omeros; if you want a single volume across his career, look for his Selected Poems (2007).
What is Derek Walcott’s most famous book?
Omeros (1990), an epic poem in seven books set mostly in St Lucia, in which fishermen named Achille and Hector fight over a woman called Helen. It won the WH Smith Literary Award, and the Nobel committee’s presenter called it a major work when Walcott won the prize in 1992.
Is Omeros based on Homer?
Loosely. It borrows names and situations from the Iliad and Odyssey — Achille, Hector, Helen, a wounded Philoctete and a blind poet called Seven Seas — but it is not a retelling. It is set among St Lucian fishermen, and also follows a retired English officer, the slave trade and Walcott’s own travels.
When did Derek Walcott win the Nobel Prize?
In 1992. He was the second Caribbean-born writer to receive it, after Saint-John Perse, who was born in Guadeloupe. His Nobel lecture, “The Antilles: Fragments of Epic Memory”, was published as a book in 1993.
Is Derek Walcott still alive?
No. He died on 17 March 2017 at his home in Cap Estate, Saint Lucia, aged 87. A year earlier he had been made one of the first Knights Commander of the Order of Saint Lucia.
Was Derek Walcott also a playwright?
Yes. He wrote more than twenty-five plays and in 1959 founded the Trinidad Theatre Workshop. Dream on Monkey Mountain won an Obie Award in 1971, he wrote The Odyssey: A Stage Version (1993), and he wrote the book and lyrics for Paul Simon’s Broadway musical The Capeman (1997).
Have Derek Walcott’s books been adapted?
Mostly by Walcott himself. Dream on Monkey Mountain was broadcast on NBC in 1970, and his stage version of Omeros played at Shakespeare’s Globe in London in 2014 and 2015. The documentary Poetry Is an Island (2013) is about his life and St Lucia.
Why did Derek Walcott withdraw from the Oxford Professor of Poetry election?
In 1982 a Harvard student complained that he had sexually harassed her, and in 1996 a Boston University student sued him for sexual harassment; the lawsuit was settled. In May 2009, when Walcott was a leading candidate for the Oxford Professor of Poetry, pages from a book describing the Harvard case were sent anonymously to Oxford academics. He withdrew on 12 May 2009, calling the campaign against him an attempt at character assassination. Ruth Padel was elected and resigned less than two weeks later, after admitting she had pointed journalists to the allegations.
Footnotes
- Derek Walcott — Wikipedia
- Omeros — Wikipedia
- Derek Walcott — Academy of American Poets
- Derek Walcott withdraws candidacy for Oxford poetry professor — Poetry International, 2009
- Padel resigns from Oxford post — Global Voices, 2009
- Derek Walcott wins TS Eliot prize — Stabroek News, 2011
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“The sea is History.”
— Derek Walcott, “The Sea Is History”, The Star-Apple Kingdom (1979)
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