Will I love Omeros?

This is not a book about history so much as one that has history suffused through it.

To me, it so perfectly captures what I love most about the Caribbean – the way that the past is always close to the surface. Derek Walcott writes so movingly about St Lucia, which is where my grandmother was born.

This is a book that is made for re-reading – I have read it at least three times now, and every time I spot a new line or a new image to savour.  

This extraordinary narrative poem by St. Lucia’s noble laureate, Derek Walcott, is equal parts Homer (hence the title) and Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man. Its tale of an epic rivalry between erstwhile friends Hector and Achille as they compete for the love of the same woman masterfully intertwines with the setting forth and coming to artistic maturity of a character fashioned in the image of the poet himself. Vast in its ambitions and characterized by a sweeping sense of history, Omeros is also intimate and tender in its exploration of love and need, with the Caribbean… show more.