Omeros

Blurb

Omeros is an epic poem by Caribbean writer Derek Walcott that was first published in 1990. Walcott divides the work into seven "books" which are divided into a total of sixty-four chapters. Many critics view Omeros "as Walcott's major achievement." Soon after its publication in 1990, it received praise from publications like The Washington Post and The New York Times Book Review which chose the book as one of its "Best Books of 1990" and called it "one of Mr. Walcott's finest poetic works." The book also won the WH Smith Literary Award in 1991. Soon after publishing Omeros, in 1992, Walcott was also awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature, and the Nobel committee member who presented the award, Professor Kjell Espmark, singled out Walcott's most recent achievement at the time, in Omeros, recognizing the book as a "major work." Walcott painted the cover for the book which depicts some of his main characters at sea together in a boat. In 2004, the critic Hilton Als of The New Yorker called the book "Walcott's masterpiece" and characterized the poem as "the perfect marriage of Walcott’s classicism and his nativism."