St Lucian poet Derek Walcott, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, died yesterday at the age of 87.
A Reuters report quoted Jeff Seroy, a spokesman for publisher Farrar, Strauss and Giroux, as saying that Walcott died shortly after 5 am yesterday. His cause of death was not immediately known, but Seroy reportedly said Walcott had been ill for some time and had recently returned home from a hospital stay.
His longtime companion, Sigrid Nama, was with him at the time of his death, Seroy said.
In order to describe how the death of Walcott has impacted on the Caribbean literary community, Uni-versity of Guyana (UG) Lecturer Al Creighton quoted English poet John Donne: “Every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main; any man’s death diminishes.”
Walcott’s death, Creighton noted, was not just the passing of one man but the death of an era. “…Walcott had become a fixture of Caribbean literature and his passing marks the end of an era I never thought to see end,” Creighton told Stabroek News in an interview.
