Narrative Rewritings and Artistic Praxis in Derek Walcott’s Works: Caribbean Decolonisations

This book focuses on Derek Walcott’s literary and artistic wor(l)d. Western postcolonial critique has depicted the Nobel Prize laureate as one of the world’s greatest poets in the 20th century. This devalues his fundamental contribution in the world of Caribbean theatre and art. The volume examines Walcott’s multimodal production, a combination of West Indian folkloric forms and Western-oriented structures and themes, by presenting three works - two plays, The Joker of Seville and Pantomime, and a long poem, Tiepolo’s Hound. These epitomise respectively a response to Spanish, English, and French cultural legacies in the New World as postcolonial re-writings of Don Juan, Robinson Crusoe, and Camille Pissarro’s stories. Following Quijano and Mignolo’s decolonial approaches and Riane Eisler’s partnership perspective, the book uncovers Walcott’s strategies to respond to the colonial matrix of power while simultaneously presenting Mantellato’s artistic praxis of adapting Walcott’s poetic manifesto The Schooner Flight through dance performances and intermedial collaborations.