In this review of Walcott's Dream on Monkey Mountain, Robert J. Willis describes the two major themes of this satirical play as racial inferiority and the "thwarted potential of a human spirit." He describes the protagonist, Makak, as a mythic and microcosmic representation of the lives of West Indians and of the legacy of racial subjugation and poverty they have endured.

Derek Walcott, a Third World poet and dramatist, born in the Castries, St. Lucia, began writing poetic dramas in 1948 with his first play, Henri Christophe, a play about the Haitian Revolution. Walcott has written 15 plays, which have been produced and published, and 10 volumes of poetry, seven of which must be called major collections. His own life as a "divided child"—he is the son of parents of mixed European and African descent—embodies one of the prime tensions of the West Indian experience.

Walcott's arch hero...