Derek Walcott, The Journeyman Years, Volume 2: Performing Arts: Occasional Prose 1957-1974

The main focus of this book will be on two aspects of the national-theatre concept. The first part will examine the idea of federation as manifested in Derek Walcott’s play Drums and Colours (1958), a work specially commissioned for the foundation of the West Indian federation. The second part will look at the public debate that raged in the 1960s between two competing models for a national theatre: an ensemble-based art theatre advocated by Walcott; and an aestheticized version of carnival, the premier cultural event of Trinidad. As ultimately neither version was implemented, the final section will discuss some of the aporias inherent in the concept in postcolonial societies.