John Thieme provides a comprehensive study of Derek Walcott's writing from its beginning in the 1940s to his most recent work. Walcott's poetry and drama are set against the background of various contexts and intertexts - Caribbean, European and other - which have shaped him as a writer. The book contains a broad overview of Walcott's career for students and readers coming to the work of the 1992 Nobel Laureate for the first time. It also offers a re-reading of his writing, which particularly emphasises strategies he has used to dismantle Manichean models of culture and society and his focus is on a travelling Odyssean protagonist who transgresses binary geographical divisions. Walcott's unpublished and out-of-print drama is discussed along with better-known plays such as "Dream on Monkey Mountain", "The Joker of Seville" and "Pantomime"; and the study incudes close readings of some of his best-known poems.