Nobel Prize Winners

The Nobel Prize is the first international award given yearly since 1901 for achievements in physics, chemistry, medicine, literature and peace. The prize consists of a medal, a personal diploma, and a prize amount. Three distinguished Caribbean nationals have won this prestigious prize.

Sir V.S. Naipaul
2001 Nobel Laureate in Literature
"for having united perceptive narrative and incorruptible scrutiny in works that compel us to see the presence of suppressed histories"

The British writer, born in Trinidad, V(idiadhar) S(urajprasad) Naipaul was born in 1932 in Chaguanas, close to the Port of Spain on Trinidad, in a family descended from immigrants from the north of India.

Naipaul's works consist mainly of novels and short stories, but also include some that are documentary. He is to a very high degree a cosmopolitan writer, a fact that he himself considers to stem from his lack of roots: he is unhappy about the cultural and spiritual poverty of Trinidad, he feels alienated from India, and in England he is incapable of relating to and identifying with the traditional values of what was once a colonial power.

Derek Walcott
1992 Nobel Laureate in Literature
"for a poetic oeuvre of great luminosity, sustained by a historical vision, the outcome of a multicultural commitment"

Derek Walcott was born in 1930 in the town of Castries in Saint Lucia, one of the Windward Islands in the Lesser Antilles. The experience of growing up on the isolated volcanic island, an ex-British colony, has had a strong influence on Walcott's life and work.

Walcott has been an assiduous traveller to other countries but has always, not least in his efforts to create an indigenous drama, felt himself deeply-rooted in Caribbean society with its cultural fusion of African, Asiatic and European elements. For many years, he has divided his time between Trinidad, where he has his home as a writer, and Boston University, where he teaches literature and creative writing.

Sir Arthur Lewis
1979 Nobel Laureate in Economics
Joint winner with Theodore W. Schultz for their pioneering research into economic development research with particular consideration of the problems of developing countries.

Sir William Arthur Lewis was born and educated in St. Lucia up to the secondary Level. He proved during this time to be quite a scholar. Later he entered the London School of Economics where he distinguished himself as a student of Economics. His excellence was rewarded, when at the age of twenty-three, he was made a lecturer. During this time he published numerous papers and pamphlets. Between 1951 and 1957 he was Stanley Jevons Professor of Political Economy at Manchester University. During this time, he was also adviser to numerous governments and served as adviser on underdeveloped countries. He advised the Ghana government in 1953 and in

1957. He also served in the same capacity in Nigeria, Trinidad and Barbados. He had also been on numerous United Nations Commissions.

He won a Nobel Prize in 1979, with Theodore Schultz, for pioneering research on economic development in emerging countries. He published a book, "The Theory of Economic Growth," in 1954 that is regarded as the seminal study in the field. In this book he advocates the development of infrastructure, education in all its areas and specialisation in agriculture and high employment.

Sir Arthur Lewis died in 1991. He is buried on the grounds of the Sir Arthur Lewis Community College in St. Lucia.