Award winning literary luminary, Professor Jamaica Kincaid, paid homage to Sir Derek Walcott during this year’s Nobel Laureate Festival.

Antiguan-born Jamaica Kincaid was the presenter at the 2017 Derek Walcott Lecture held at the National Cultural Centre.

Her lecture entitled “Our Homer: Derek Walcott – Prophet of Truth and Splendour in the Star-Apple Kingdom” contextualized Saint Lucia’s Nobel Prize winner’s imagery and writing in a historic, neo-colonialist, West Indian environment.

Kincaid praised Sir Derek’s ability to use the Caribbean landscape that once stood for the oppression and destruction of indigenous people and culture, as inspiration for rebirth and hope.

She noted that Sir Derek’s writing, steeped in capturing notions of being Saint Lucian and being West Indian, aptly articulates the beauty and challenges of the past and present.