Why read Omeros?

Book cover of Omeros

Book description

Omeros is the grand epic poem told in multiple chapters from Nobel Prize-winning poet and playwright Derek Walcott.

With circular narrative design, titled with the Greek name for Homer, Omeros simultaneously charts two currents of history: the visible history charted in events--the tribal losses of the American Indian, the tragedy…

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Poetry

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Why read it?

2 authors picked Omeros as one of their favorite books. Why do they recommend it?

Eleanor Shearer

Author

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.

From Eleanor's list on The best books that bring history to life in all its strange and unsettling glory.

Raymond A. Saraceni

Author

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…

From Raymond's list on The best books to accompany your Caribbean Sojourn.