Derek Walcott, born in Saint Lucia, the West Indies, received, among many other honors, the 1992 Nobel Prize in Literature, a MacArthur Foundation "genius" award, a Royal Society of Literature Award, and, in 1988, the Queen's Medal for Poetry. 

Walcott's poetry collections include The Prodigal (Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2004) Tiepolo's Hound ( 2000), The Bounty (1997), Omeros (1990), The Arkansas Testament (1987), Collected Poems: 1948-1984 (1986), Midsummer (1986), The Fortunate Traveller (1981), The Star-Apple Kingdom (1979), Sea Grapes (1976), Another Life (1973), The Gulf (1970), The Castaway (1965), and In a Green Night (1962). His first collection of essays, What the Twilight Says (Farrar, Straus & Giroux), was published in 1998. His plays include The Odyssey: A Stage Version (1992); The Isle is Full of Noises (1982); Remembrance and Pantomime (1980); The Joker of Seville and O Babylon! (1978); Dream on Monkey Mountain and Other Plays (1970); Three Plays: The Last Carnival; Beef, No Chicken; and A Branch of the Blue Nile (1969). Derek Walcott taught creative writing at Boston University every fall and lived the rest of the year in St. Lucia.