Boucquey Thierry (General Editor). Encyclopedia Of World Writers. 3 volumes
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Valéry, Paul (1871–1945) poet, essayist
A writer who devoted his life and work to wor-
shiping what he referred to as the “idol of intel-
lect,” Paul Valéry was born in the small
Mediterranean seaside town of Sète on October 30.
The son of a customs clerk, he spent his childhood
by the sea. He grew to be fascinated by the rhyth-
mical quality of waves and the intrinsic natural
beauty of water. This early childhood aesthetic de-
light translated itself into a later interest in both ar-
chitecture and poetry.
As an adult, Valéry left the seacoast to travel to
Paris, where he made the acquaintance of a small
group of friends who shared his interests and en-
couraged his artistic endeavors, among whom was
fellow writer André GIDE. The two became lifelong
friends and influenced each other greatly. Valéry
was also influenced by Stéphane MALLARMÉ and the
symbolist poets. His earliest works were published
in symbolist journals, where they were well re-
ceived, but Valéry chose initially to place his artis-
tic endeavors secondary to his study of
mathematics and the sciences. He did, however,
publish a collection of vignettes, such as Mr. Head
(1895), depicting human intellect as distinct and
segregated from the world as a whole. This theme
would manifest itself in much of Valéry’s later
work.
A failed romance prompted Valéry to withdraw
completely from the arts, maintaining some of his
artistic friendships but taking a job in the civil-
service branch of the French war office and focus-
ing solely on scientific pursuits. He wrote no
poetry during this period. He wrote only his ob-
servations on the scientific aspects of language and
consciousness and one substantial work on
Leonardo da Vinci. He praised Leonardo as being a
perfect example of man because of his ability to re-
main emotionally detached in his mastery of both
science and the arts.
In 1912, 20 years after his retreat from poetry,
Valéry was encouraged by André Gide to go back
and revise some of his earlier works. Five years
later, the poems were collected and published to
widespread acclaim. Of particular interest both
popularly and critically was the publication of his
long poem The Youngest Fate (1917). The work de-
tails the awakening of human consciousness and
intellect symbolically through the youngest fate,
which represents the earliest stage of human devel-
opment. This work solidly emphasizes Valéry’s idol
of intellect, which he eventually defined as a state of
pure reason existing separately from the emotional
demands of society. He also stressed the conflict
between the human desire to think and the human
will to act.
The works produced in 1917 gained Valéry
widespread fame as a poet. He continued to pub-
lish poetry throughout the rest of his life, but the
majority of his work remained focused on the sci-
ences, as well as cultural and political concerns. His
interest in the sciences brought him into direct
contact with many influential thinkers, including
Einstein and Faraday. He became a prominent per-
sonality in Parisian high society where his wit and
intelligence provided much entertainment at oth-
erwise dry social functions. The degree to which he
knew and understood politics also made him an
extremely popular speaker on current events.
In 1925, Valéry was elected to the Académie
Française, and the position of professor of poetry
at the Collège de France was created specifically for
him. He died soon after the liberation of France at
the end of World War II. He was given a state fu-
neral, in keeping with his honored place in French
society.
Another Work by Paul Valéry
Sea Shells. Translated by Ralph Manheim. Boston:
Beacon Press, 1998.
Works about Paul Valéry
Kluback, William. Paul Valéry: A Philosopher for
Philosophers: The Sage. New York: Peter Lang,
2000.
Putnam, Walter. Paul Valéry Revisited. Boston:
Twayne, 1995.
Vallejo, César (1892–1938) poet, novelist
César Abraham Vallejo was the youngest of 11 chil-
dren born to a family in Santiago de Chuco, a small
Andean town north of Peru. His parents, Francisco
de Paula Vallejo and María de los Santos Mendoza,
were both children of Chimu Indian mothers and
Spanish Catholic priests. Vallejo’s family was very
poor, and financial problems haunted the poet
throughout his life.
In 1910, he enrolled in the University of Tru-
jillo, but his studies were repeatedly interrupted
due to financial hardship. Vallejo took different
jobs, such as teaching and a clerical position in a
sugar estate’s accounting department, to survive.
His job at the sugar estate showed him the poverty
and poor working conditions of the workers, an
experience that helped refine Vallejo’s sense of sol-
idarity with and empathy for those who suffer.
It was in Trujillo that Vallejo first came into
contact with writers, and there he wrote his first
poems, including the draft of his first book of po-
etry, The Black Heralds (1918). The poetry in this
collection shows both
MODERNIST and ROMANTIC
tendencies and was well received. He received his
master’s degree in 1915 in Spanish literature and,
in 1917, moved to Lima, where he became ac-
quainted with many important Peruvian writers
and intellectuals of the day, including the anarchist
Manual Gonzalez Prada.
After the crushing loss of his mother in 1920,
and having lost a teaching position, he returned
home to visit. Disturbances broke out while he was
there—an official was assassinated and a store was
burned down—and he was accused of being an in-
stigator. Even though there was an overwhelming
supportive response in the form of letters by im-
portant intellectuals and newspaper editors,
Vallejo still served 105 days in jail. This experience,
as well as the changes occurring in European liter-
ature, affected his next collection of poetry, Trilce
(1922), which marked a fundamental change in
Hispanic-American literature. By separating him-
self from the more traditional models he had fol-
lowed in the past, and by pursuing unexplored
experiences of the human condition, Vallejo
helped renovate poetic language and form.
Having lost yet another job and fearing being
put back in jail, Vallejo moved to Paris in 1923. Al-
though he met such important vanguard figures as
Vicente Huidobro, Juan Gris, Pablo Picasso, Jean
COCTEAU, and Antonin ARTAUD, Vallejo eventually
abandoned his own experimental writings due to
his readings in marxism. By 1927, he was engaged
in the communist cause and became an intellectual
and political activist. In 1930, he was arrested at a
train station for producing communist propa-
ganda and was ordered to leave France.
Vallejo, César 439
Vallejo went to Madrid where, in 1931, he
joined the Spanish Communist Party and wrote
his novel Tungsten (1931). He returned to Paris
in 1933 via a resident permit that banned him
from becoming involved in any type of political
activities.
In 1934, he married Georgette Phillipart, with
whom he had been living since 1929. In 1936, the
fascist uprising in Spain sparked in Vallejo a period
of unparalleled creativity. In 1937 he was voted Pe-
ruvian representative at the Second International
Congress of Writers for the Defense of Culture,
which took place in Spain. There he had a chance
to see firsthand the horror of the civil war, and out
of this experience in the next few months came a
tragedy, La piedra cansada (The exhausted rock),
and more than 80 poems, including the 15 poems
that form Spain, Take This Cup from Me.
In his poem “Black Stone on Top of a White
Stone” Vallejo wrote: “I shall die in Paris, in a
rainstorm.” These words were prophetic. His last
words expressed his desire to go to Spain and
fight against the fascist forces that were tearing
through the country. At the time of his death,
much of his work was still unpublished. In 1939,
his Spain, Take This Cup from Me and Human
Poems were published posthumously. His poetry
is characterized by experimentation with lan-
guage, which often makes it difficult to read; real
historical elements; and intense images of human
pain and connection. His poem “To My Brother
Miguel In Memoriam,” for example, poignantly
draws a parallel between the brothers’ childhood
games of hide-and-seek and Miguel’s death:
“Miguel, you went into hiding ...but,instead of
chuckling, you were sad.” Vallejo is remembered
as being Peru’s greatest poet, as well as one of the
seminal voices of 20th-century Hispanic-Ameri-
can poetry, and one of the most original Spanish
voices of all time.
Other Works by César Vallejo
Bly, Robert, ed. Neruda and Vallejo: Selected Poems.
Translated by John Knoepfle and James Wright.
Boston: Beacon Press, 1993.
César Vallejo: The Complete Posthumous Poetry.
Translated by Clayton Eshleman and Jose Rubin
García. Berkeley: University of California Press,
1992.
The Black Heralds (Discoveries). Translated by
Richard Schaaf and Katherine Ross. Pittsburgh,
Pa.: Latin American Literary Review Press, 1990.
Trilce. Translated by Rebecca Seiferle. New York:
Sheep Meadow Press, 1992.
Tungsten. Translated by Robert Mezey. Syracuse, N.Y.:
Syracuse University Press, 1989.
Works about César Vallejo
Niebylski, Dianna C. The Poem on the Edge of the
Word: The Limits of Language and the Uses of Si-
lence in the Poetry of Mallarmé, Rilke and Vallejo.
New York: Peter Lang, 1993.
Sharman, Adam, ed. The Poetry and Poetics of César
Vallejo: The Fourth Angle of the Circle. Lewiston,
N.Y.: Edwin Mellen Press, 1997.
Vargas Llosa, Mario (1936– ) novelist
Mario Vargas Llosa was born in Arequipa, Peru.
Shortly after his birth, his father and mother sepa-
rated, and his mother took him to live in Bolivia.
His grandfather was the Peruvian consul there, and
Vargas Llosa spent the next eight years in a privi-
leged and happy atmosphere. He read adventure
stories and, because he could not stand it when the
books came to an end, he invented additional
chapters.
When Vargas Llosa was 10 years old, his par-
ents reconciled, and he returned to Peru. As a
teenager, he began to write poems. His father,
wishing to discourage his son from being a writer,
sent him to the Leoncio Prado Military School.
This traumatic experience had the opposite effect
on Vargas Llosa: Forced to keep his literary inter-
ests secret, he became more committed to his writ-
ing and developed a strong need to rebel against
conventional society.
When Vargas Llosa’s first novel The Time of the
Hero (1962) was published, it won several literary
prizes and was highly praised. It also caused a great
440 Vargas Llosa, Mario
controversy at the Leoncio Prado Military School
because of his harsh criticism of the military. A
thousand copies were burned publicly on orders of
the school administration.
The Time of the Hero focuses on sections of so-
ciety and taboos frequently avoided by Peruvian
writers. In the book, Vargas Llosa pays a great deal
of attention to his character’s fantasies, which be-
come an active part of the plot. One of Vargas
Llosa’s main interests is how real life and fantasy
combine to form a reality which would not exist
without both of them.
In 1967 Vargas Llosa met Gabriel GARCÍA
MÁRQUEZ in Caracas. The two men, both central
figures in the MAGIC REALISM movement, held a se-
ries of public discussions on the art of fiction writ-
ing. At this time, Vargas Llosa was arriving at his
mature conception of the purpose of the novel in
society. He saw the novel as a mode for the writer
to struggle with and attempt to change human re-
ality. He viewed the novel both as a means to pre-
serve moments of time from one’s personal past
and to exorcise personal demons.
Vargas Llosa became increasingly concerned
with politics during the 1970s and, in 1981, wrote
The War of the End of the World, which examines
and harshly criticizes the tendency toward political
fanaticism so prevalent in Latin-American history.
Set in 19th-century Brazil, it blends an actual his-
torical event with fantasy and the psychological ex-
ploration of its characters. The overall effect is to
make visceral the atrocity of an event that other-
wise might have been become a history remem-
bered without emotion. Vargas Llosa’s techniques
emphasize that history is itself a kind of fiction and
our view of it can change the future.
In 1990, Vargas Llosa took his political interests
from the world of literary discourse and decided to
put them into action. He ran for president of Peru
against Alberto Fujimori. Unfortunately, he lost,
and Fujimori went on to impose an authoritarian
and corrupt government on the people of Peru.
Vargas Llosa continues to write. His novel The
Feast of the Goat (2002) examines the reign of Do-
minican dictator Gen. Rafael Trujillo with Vargas
Llosa’s characteristic blend of history, fantasy, and
political insight. His novel This Way to Paradise
was published in 2003.
Other Works by Mario Vargas Llosa
Aunt Julia and the Scriptwriter. Translated by Helen
R. Lane. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1982.
A Fish in the Water: A Memoir. Translated by Helen
Lane. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1994.
Verga, Giovanni (1840–1922) novelist,
dramatist
Giovanni Verga was born in Catania, Sicily. He in-
tended initially to pursue a career in law; he aban-
doned his studies to concentrate on writing novels.
His early works were romantic in tone, but his later
and, subsequently, better-received novels begin-
ning with The Malavogolia Family (1881) were
written in the emerging Italian realist style known
as VERISMO.
Modeled after ÉMILE ZOLA’s Rougon-Macquart
series, The Malavogolia Family was initially in-
tended to be part of a larger sequence of novels
collectively titled The Vanquished, dealing with the
life of Sicilian fishermen. Although only one other
novel was completed in the saga, Maestro Don
Gesualdo (1884), the works firmly established
Verga as a leading writer in the verismo school. His
attention to detail in his faithful depictions of late
19th-century life in both Sicily and southern Italy
gained him much praise.
Although Verga began his career writing novels,
he is best known for his dramatic works. His first
play was an adaptation of his short story Rustic
Chivalry (1884). A tale of lust, love, and murder,
the play, set in his native Sicily, gained popularity
when it was further adapted as an opera by the
composer Mascagni. Cavalleria Rusticana contin-
ues to be performed throughout the world.
Verga’s second dramatic work, In Porter’s Lodge
(1885), again treats the themes of love and vio-
lence. This time, he moves the setting to the city of
Milan, thus exemplifying the universality of his
themes. In fact, the major criticism against Verga’s
Verga, Giovanni 441
dramas has been that he indulges in the violent na-
ture of reality, focusing on murder, lust, adultery,
suicide, and other crimes of passion at the expense
of the poetry and humor of Sicily. This is equally
true in several of his later plays including The She-
Wolf (1896) and The Wolf Hunt (1902). However, it
is his unsentimental depiction of reality that make
his plays successful. Verga’s one attempt at social
drama, The Fox Hunt (1902), received little atten-
tion critically and was a failure in production.
Verga wrote his last play, an adaptation of his
novel Dal tuo al Mio, in 1905. The remainder of his
life, during which many translations of his works
were produced internationally, passed quietly. He
died in 1922, well remembered for his contribu-
tions to Italian realistic literature.
Other Works by Giovanni Verga
Appelbaum, Stanley, ed. Sicilian Stories/Novelle Sicil-
iane: A Dual-Language Book. New York: Dover,
2002.
Little Novels of Sicily: Stories. Translated by D. H.
Lawrence. South Royalton, Vt.: Steerforth Press,
2000.
The House by the Medlar Tree. Translated by Ray-
mond Rosenthal. Berkeley: University of Califor-
nia Press, 1984.
verismo
Similar in form to other REALIST movements of the
late 19th and early 20th centuries, the Italian
verismo movement developed as a means of objec-
tively presenting life in simple language, with vivid
details and natural dialogue. In particular, writers
of the movement focused on the social conditions
and hardships of the lower classes, bringing to
focus much of the tragedy of the dominant human
condition.
Two primary novelists of the verismo movement
were Luigi Capuana (1839–1915) and Giovanni
VERGA. They were influenced by the French realist
movement, especially the writings of Honoré
de BALZAC, and, closer to home, the short-lived
Milanese Bohemian movement SCAPIGLIATURA.
Capuana is actually credited with having begun the
movement with his collection of short stories
Studies of Women (1877), a work which was ex-
tremely psychologically motivated as well as objec-
tive in its depictions to the point of almost
excluding all traces of human emotion. Verga’s
works, while also objective in nature, tended to be
softer than Capuana’s, lending a trace of emotional
warmth to an otherwise dismal portrait of 19th-
century Sicily and its social conditions.
As the movement grew, other writers also began
to adopt some of its traits, generally focusing their
works on the places they knew the best, such as
their hometowns, and the prevailing social condi-
tions faced by the lower-class residents. Minor
writers of the movement who are worthy of note
included Matilde Serao (1865–1927) and Grazia
Deledda (1871–1936), who was awarded the Nobel
Prize for literature in 1926.
Verismo also found expression in opera. In the
last decade of the 19th century, violence and melo-
drama found their way to the stage in the form of
operatic works taken directly from everyday life.
Here, the influence of the movement is felt most
strongly. In particular, Puccini’s Tosca (1900)
shows strongly the impact of verismo.
A Work about Verismo
Sergio, Pacifici, ed. From Verismo to Experimentalism:
Essays on the Modern Italian Novel. Bloomington:
Indiana University Press, 1970.
Verlaine, Paul (1851–1896) poet
A leading poet of the French symbolist movement
(see SYMBOLISM), Paul Verlaine was born in Metz.
In 1881, he moved to Paris, where he attended
school and read Charles BAUDELAIRE’s Flowers of
Evil, which influenced his decision to become a
writer.
Verlaine studied law for two years but aban-
doned his studies to pursue writing. He befriended
several young poets with whom he spent long
hours in philosophical discussions. Excessive con-
sumption of absinthe, the favored drink among
442 verismo
writers and artists, eventually led to the demise of
many of his relationships and to his own ultimate
hospitalization.
Verlaine’s father refused to support his son’s bo-
hemian way of life, but Verlaine managed to forge
an existence based primarily on drinking and writ-
ing. His first published works, Poèmes saturniens
(1866) and Fêtes Galantes (1869), echoed the
emerging symbolist style.
In 1870, although he had already begun to dis-
play homosexual tendencies, Verlaine married
Mathilde Maute de Fleurville. For her, he wrote La
Bonne Chanson (1870), in which he expressed his
darkest fears and hopes for happiness. The mar-
riage ended when Verlaine began an affair with the
younger French poet Arthur RIMBAUD. Verlaine left
his wife to return to a bohemian existence with
Rimbaud until, after a drunken argument, he shot
Rimbaud in the wrist.Verlaine was sentenced to 18
months in prison, during which time he wrote
what is arguably his finest collection, Songs With-
out Words (1874).
In 1873, Verlaine converted to Catholicism. He
moved to England to teach French and began work
on the collection Wisdom (1881). These poems re-
flect his new faith in God. He left his teaching post
in 1889 and adopted his favorite student.
In 1883, Verlaine’s student died of typhus. His
mother’s death followed in 1886. Again Verlaine
sought refuge in alcohol. He continued to write
but spent his royalties on prostitutes and con-
stantly reflected on his loss of Rimbaud, whom he
claimed to dream about every night.
Verlaine achieved great fame as a poet and was
elected France’s Prince of Poets in 1894. His way
of life ultimately got the better of him, and he died
two years later on January 8, in complete poverty.
Another Work by Paul Verlaine
Women and Men: Erotica. Translated by Philip
Shirley. New York: Stonehill, 1980.
A Work about Paul Verlaine
Chadwick, Charles. Verlaine. London: Athlone Press,
1973.
Vigny, Alfred de (1797–1863) playwright,
poet, novelist
Best known for his Chatterton (1835), one of the
most influential plays of the French romantic pe-
riod (see ROMANTICISM
), Alfred de Vigny was born
in Loches, Indre-et-Loire, to Leon Pierre de Vigny,
a former officer of the king’s army. As a student,
he wrote several neoclassical tragedies based on the
lives of such figures as Anthony and Cleopatra, but
he destroyed these works and, at age 16, followed
in his father’s footsteps by entering the military. He
soon became disillusioned with military life, how-
ever, finding it less glamorous than it is portrayed
in fiction. He spent most of his time in the bar-
racks reading classical texts and writing poetry.
Vigny met Victor
HUGO in 1820 and became en-
amored of the new trend toward romanticism. He
published a collection of poetry, Poèmes antiques et
modernes (1826), and a historical novel, Cinq-Mars
(1826), inspired by the works of Sir Walter Scott.
In 1827, Vigny resigned from military service
and went to Paris to write. He wrote of his disap-
pointment with the military experience in Servi-
tude et grandeur militaires (The Military Necessity,
1835). In this work, he condemns the savage nature
of war but praises the friendships that develop be-
tween soldiers.
Vigny planned to marry Delphine Gay who, 20
years later, became the inspiration for many of his
poems, but his mother opposed the idea, and he
married instead Lydia Bunbury. In 1827, after an
English Shakespearean theater group came
through France, he became interested in theater,
writing adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays. He
wrote his first original play, La Maréchale D’Ancre
(1831), based on Louis XIII.
His best-known work, Chatterton (1835), was
written for his mistress, actress Marie Dorval. It
describes the death of a young poet who was inca-
pable of surviving in a brutal, materialistic world.
Its success gained Vigny recognition as a literary
rival to Hugo, with whom his friendship had de-
clined. Although he remained successful in his lit-
erary career, the end of his life was difficult. His
marriage and his affair both turned sour, and he
Vigny, Alfred de 443
was rejected by the French Academy five times
before being accepted in 1845. He published only
a few poems in later years, dying in Paris on
September 17.
Other Works by Alfred de Vigny
Alfred de Vigny’s “Chatterton”. Translated by Philip A.
Fulvi. New York: Griffon House, 1990.
Stello: A Session with Doctor Noir. Translated by Irving
Massey. Montreal: McGill University Press, 1963.
Works about Alfred de Vigny
Dolittle, James. Alfred de Vigny. Boston: Twayne, 1967.
Shwimer, Elaine K. The Novels of Alfred de Vigny: A
Study of Their Form and Composition. New York:
Garland Press, 1991.
Villiers de L’Isle-Adam, Auguste
(Mathias de Villiers) (1838–1889)
novelist, playwright
A believer in God as well as in the mysteries of the
occult, Villiers was a visionary who anticipated
SYMBOLISM, promoted idealism, lived his beliefs in
spite of the harsh reality of the world around him,
and remained proud of his heritage. Born in Brit-
tany on November 28, he came from a family
whose ancestors had defended and rebuilt France,
fought in the Crusades, and exemplified what
Villers believed to be the true ideals of virtue. The
temporary nature of physical existence, the impor-
tance and reality of the spirit world and its forbid-
den mysteries, as well as the beauty and nobility of
intellect all find their way into his writing.
Villiers’s works, influenced by the gothic ele-
ments of
ROMANTICISM, are also commonly associ-
ated with the then-emerging symbolist movement.
Although extremely prolific, he is most noted for
the play Axel (1890), the short-story collection
Sardonic Tales (1883; translated 1927), and the
novel L’Eve Future (1886). In these works, Villiers
turns to magic and the supernatural in a search
for idealism that is lacking in the material world.
Loved and admired by fellow writers Paul
VERLAINE and Maurice MAETERLINCK, Villiers was
unknown to most of the world and scorned by
many who did know him and believed him to be a
madman. His early works, of which there were
many, such as the spiritual romance Isis (1862) and
the macabre Claire Lenoir (1867), went unnoticed
by the public and the critics. L’Eve Future (1886),
his parody of science and technology, finally
gained him some measure of recognition in 1886.
Villiers died on August 19 while working on the
final revisions to the posthumously published
Axel. The recognition that had been denied him in
life, as is often true for those individuals whose
work is visionary, found him in death, and he
paved the way for much of the emerging symbol-
ist work that followed.
A Work about August Villiers de L’Isle-
Adam
Conroy, William Thomas. Villiers de l’Isle-Adam.
Boston: Twayne, 1978.
Voinovich, Vladimir (1932– ) novelist
Vladimir Vladimirovich Voinovich was born in
the city of Dushanbe, the capital of Tajikistan, in
the Soviet Union. His father was a journalist, and
his mother a mathematics teacher. Although his
father wrote poetry and prose, virtually none of it
was published. From an early age,Voinovich loved
books and he later remarked about his childhood,
“Our principal wealth was our books....”
Voinovich grew up during World War II and
began to work at age 11. As he admits, he had lit-
tle formal schooling and was principally educated
by his father. He worked at various jobs, such as
carpenter and metal worker, before starting to
write.
Working with various composers, Voinovich
began his writing career in 1960 by writing about
50 songs; he also wrote poetry and was published
nearly at once. In 1961, his first short story, “We
Live Here,” was published in Novy Mir, a presti-
gious literary journal. Early in his career, the
poignant realism of Voinovich’s prose alarmed the
Soviet government, which resulted in Voinovich
444 Villiers de L’Isle-Adam, Auguste
being openly badgered in newspapers throughout
the country. Voinovich emigrated from Russia in
1980. He was stripped of his Soviet citizenship in
1981 by decree of Leonid Brezhnev, the leader of
the Soviet Union.
No longer restricted by censors, Voinovich was
prolific and productive while he lived in Germany
and the United States. His best-known novel, The
Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan
Chonkin, was published in Paris in 1975. Combin-
ing political criticism and humor, the novel sati-
rizes the absurdity of the Soviet regime. Voinovich
experimented with various genres of fiction, rang-
ing from striking realism to dystopian science-fic-
tion visions of a communist future. Moscoe 2042
(1986) exaggerated and reflected the reality of the
crumbling Soviet regime. In this novel, the narra-
tor time-travels into 21st-century Moscow and dis-
covers a culturally and socially degenerate society
that supposedly achieved the theoretical goals of
communism.
After the fall of the communist regime, the
government returned Russian citizenship to
Voinovich. He currently lives in Moscow and in
Munich, Germany. Voinovich is a member of the
prestigious Bavarian Academy of Arts and the
Mark Twain society. His prose has been translated
into 10 languages.
Another Work by Vladimir Voinovich
Fur Hat. Translated by Susan Brownberger. New York:
Harvest Books, 1991.
Voinovich, Vladimir 445
446
W
Walcott, Derek (Alton) (1930– ) poet,
playwright, producer, teacher, journalist,
painter
Derek Alton Walcott was born in Castries, St.
Lucia, an ex-British colony. His grandmothers
were slave descendants, and his grandfathers were
English and Dutch. Both Walcott’s father, War-
wick, a Bohemian poet and artist, and his mother,
Alix, who ran Castries’ Methodist school and re-
cited Shakespeare in the house, influenced the pur-
suits of Derek and his twin brother, Roderick, who
later became a distinguished playwright. Walcott’s
mentor Harold (Harry) Simmons, a painter, folk-
lorist, and family friend, gave the young man
painting and drawing lessons, as well as access to
his library of poetry and art books and his collec-
tion of classical records. By the age of eight, Wal-
cott decided he wanted to become a poet.
Educated at St. Mary’s College, a high school for
boys in Castries, Walcott published his first poem
at age 14 in The Voice of St. Lucia. As an 18 year old,
he published his first volume of poetry, 25 Poems
(1948), followed by his long poem Epitaph for the
Young (1949). 25 Poems attracted the attention and
encouragement of Frank
COLLYMORE. Looking back
at his earlier verse writing in “What the Twilight
Says,” a 1970 autobiographical essay, Walcott wrote
that he strove to “legitimately [prolong] the
mighty line of Marlowe and Milton.”
In 1950, the British awarded Walcott a Colonial
Development and Welfare Scholarship to the Uni-
versity College of the West Indies in Jamaica. While
there, Walcott published a small collection of po-
etry, entitled Poems. He stayed at the University
College of the West Indies to do graduate work in
education after earning a B.A. in English, French,
and Latin. Before leaving, Walcott designed and di-
rected the student drama society’s presentation of
Henri Christophe (1950), Walcott’s first and best-
known play, previously produced in 1950 by the St.
Lucia Arts Guild, which Walcott founded.
From 1953 to 1957, Walcott worked as a teacher
at the Grenada Boys’ School, St. Mary’s College,
and Jamaica College, and in 1956, he started work-
ing in journalism as a feature writer for Public
Opinion, a Jamaican weekly in Kingston. Later, he
became a feature writer and drama critic for the
Trinidad Guardian. Sponsored by a Rockefeller
Foundation theater fellowship, he went to New
York in 1958 and studied directing and set design.
Dissatisfied, he settled in Trinidad one year later. In
1960, he founded the Little Carib Theatre Work-
shop (which later became the Trinidad Theatre
Workshop). There he trained actors and produced
a number of his earlier plays, many on the myths
and rituals of West Indian folk life.
Walcott’s plays examine Caribbean identity
and life by employing verse and prose, elements
of pantomime, realism, fable, and fantasy. In
“What the Twilight Says,” Walcott wrote that he
wanted to use “a language that went beyond
mimicry,”“which begins to create an oral culture,
of chants, jokes, folk-songs, and fables.” Of
his many plays, Walcott’s Dream on Monkey
Mountain (1967) is among his most impressive. It
won an Obie Award as the best foreign play of
1971 after being staged in New York. Three
other plays—The Last Carnival, which looks at
the recent decades of Trinidad’s history; A Branch
of the Blue Nile, about a conflict in the central
character’s mind between drama and the
church, with characters partly based on the actors
Walcott worked with at the Trinidad Theatre
Workshop); and Beef, No Chicken, a comedy
about the absurdities of postcolonial politics in
the Caribbean—appear in Three Plays (1986).
In addition to playwriting, Walcott has worked
with Galt MacDermott, known for the musical
Hair, and has written musicals: The Joker of Seville
(first performed in 1974; an adaptation of Tirso
de Molina’s El Burlador de Sevilla from Roy Camp-
bell’s English translation); and O Babylon! (first
performed in 1976; a portrayal of Rastafarians in
Jamaica that examines capitalism).
Drawing on various literary and dramatic
traditions—classical and contemporary, African,
Asiatic, and European—Walcott writes in stan-
dard English and West Indian dialect. His work
uses imagery and traditional literary techniques to
explore themes of exile, injustice, oppression, and
identity formation while reconstructing history. In
a Green Night (1962), his first widely distributed
and commercially published volume of poetry,
fuses traditional verse with examinations of
Caribbean experiences. In a review cited in the
Academy of American Poets Poetry Archive,
Robert Graves asserted, “Derek Walcott handles
English with a closer understanding of its inner
magic than most (if not any) of his English-born
contemporaries.”
Since the 1970s, Walcott has periodically lived
and worked in the United States, serving as a visit-
ing lecturer at several universities, including Co-
lumbia, Rutgers, Yale, Princeton, Harvard, and
Boston University.
Meanwhile, Walcott has continued to write pro-
lifically. Between 1970 and 1974, he published es-
says on literary culture, including “What the
Twilight Says: An Overture” (1970), “Meanings”
(1970), and “The Muse of History” (1974). His
publications consistently garner critical acclaim.
They include Sea Grapes (1976) and The Star Apple
Kingdom (1979), collections in which he turned
from the lush celebrations of the Caribbean land-
scape that characterized his earlier poems to ex-
amine the cultural tensions of island life, and
Midsummer (1984), which focuses on the poet’s
own situation, living in America and isolated from
his Caribbean homeland. In his most ambitious
work, the epic poem Omeros (1990), Walcott uses
terza rima, a rhyme scheme of interlocking tercets
most famously used by Dante in The Divine Com-
edy, and Creole idioms to retell the Homeric leg-
ends in a modern Caribbean setting.
In 1992, two years after Omeros’s publication,
Walcott received the Nobel Prize in literature. Rex
Nettleford, a former classmate of Walcott’s at the
University of West Indies, vice-chancellor of the
University of West Indies, and artistic director of
Jamaica National Dance Theatre Company, said,
in “1992, he’s the West Indian writer most deserv-
ing of recognition. His work signifies the cultural
integrity emerging from tremendous cross-fertil-
ization in Caribbean life and history. It reminds
us that we have no common mint of origin, only
a common mint of relations.” D. S. Izevbaye com-
ments that his “skill in creating new meanings out
of old, that is, the creation of a new language
based on his commitment to standard English
and a mythohistoric interpretation of West In-
dian identity, is a central part of Walcott’s
achievement.”
Walcott, Derek 447