Journalist and author Ira Mathur recalls meeting Derek Walcott amid Carnival in Trinidad in 1992, shortly after he won the Nobel Prize in Literature. Her account, published as an excerpt from her memoir Love the Dark Days, also describes a later invitation to visit him in St Lucia.
Where Mathur’s recollection begins
In an excerpt published by Scroll.in on June 21, 2024, Mathur places her first encounter with Walcott at Queen’s Park Savannah during Carnival Sunday in Trinidad. The news, she writes, was full of his triumphant return with the Nobel Prize.
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As she remembers it, Walcott stopped her from tripping over tree roots and asked who she was. Mathur introduced herself as a freelance journalist with the Trinidad Guardian and congratulated him on the award. In the exchange recalled in her memoir, he replied: “Go away and have a sandwich while I decide what to do with you.”
A brief meeting and a later invitation
The excerpt moves between that crowded Carnival encounter and a later trip to St Lucia, which Mathur says followed an earlier interview and an invitation from Walcott to visit. It is not simply a record of a single conversation: she also reflects on his public presence and on her own reasons for wanting to interview him.
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Mathur wonders what unsaid thing she might ask about his Nobel Prize. At a university event she recounts, she attributes to Walcott the observation, “The English language is nobody’s special property. It is the property of the imagination: it is the property of the language itself,” as well as the remark, “The Caribbean is full of visual surprise.” These are lines as reported in her memoir excerpt.
Walcott, the Nobel, and Omeros
Walcott was the 1992 Nobel Laureate in Literature, according to the Nobel Prize interview transcript. That interview ranges across his Caribbean background, vocation and influences, and discusses the creation of Omeros.
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Mathur calls Omeros Walcott’s magnum opus and describes the breadth of his creative work as part of the challenge of deciding what to ask him. Her excerpt also recalls a student asking, “How this man rewrite Homer’s Odyssey, for God’s sake?” Together, these details show how the Nobel and Walcott’s literary achievement frame her personal encounter without turning it into an independently corroborated account of the meeting.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What the memoir excerpt offers
- A journalist’s first-person recollection of meeting Walcott during Carnival in Trinidad in the year he won the Nobel Prize.
- A glimpse of the encounter’s informal, human scale: roots in the path, a sandwich, and a decision about what to do next.
- A broader account that connects the brief meeting to a later visit in St Lucia and Mathur’s reflections on interviewing a major writer.
The recollection is Mathur’s memoir account, not an independently corroborated report of the personal exchange. Read the excerpt in the context of Love the Dark Days; the Nobel Prize interview provides a separate route into Walcott’s reflections on his work and Omeros.
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