bove: St Lucia

By the Caribbean Journal staff

A major arts project is coming to the island of St Lucia.

The project will involve the reconstruction of the Walcott House, home of brothers Derek and Roderick Walcott, the former of whom won the 1992 Nobel Prize for Literature.

The Walcott Place and Grass Street Urban Enhancement Project has officially received its first installment of funding from the government of Taiwan.

The project will include a new theatre arts complex including an exhibition space, an experimental black-box theatre and a reference library.

“It was small, and even back then would have been surrounded by a mix of working class people, and yet, within those walls, a single mother raised three children,” St Lucia Prime Minister Dr Kenny Anthony said of the home where the Walcott brothers were raised. “Poems were written, plays were rehearsed, children were taught to sew, carnival costumes were manufactured, pans were struck in the yard and paintings were conceived. A realization of people’s greatness was sparked there.”

The Walcott House itself will serve as a museum and gallery.

Taiwan has committed $2.8 million to the project, with the first phase including $500,000.