London- The Iraqi poet and translator Ghareeb Iskander has made a remarkable step by translating a bouquet of poem for the Caribbean poet, Derek Walcott, aiming at enhancing dialogue among different cultures and to offer the Arab reader a new opportunity to acquaint a new rich experience in poetry, for one of the most important modern poets according to The Sunday Times.

In his introduction, Iskander has pointed that the majority of poems he translated for Walcott have been selected from the “White Egrets” collection, which received the T. S. Eliot Prize in 2010.

The Iraqi translator has revealed that the Caribbean poet has used some fictional titles and has chosen time as a dominating theme in his poems.

Walcott received the 1992 Nobel Prize in Literature and was a leading candidate for the position of Oxford Professor of Poetry. However, he was obliged to withdraw his candidature after he was accused of harassing a student.

Who is Derek Walcott?

He was born in Saint Lucia in 1930 and was known as the best cricket players in that region. However, he realized his love for poetry and composed his first collection that comprised 25 poems while he was 18 years old; two years later, he wrote his first play.

Walcott speaks and reads English, French and Spanish. He believed that poetry is a space of expression which can embrace all the human energies and be guided by people’s longing, especially for motherland.

Ghareeb Iskander masters English and Arabic and has been significantly interested in English-written poetry; he is an academic who has focused his efforts in the fields of poetry and translation studies and has many poetry collections and translated books.