This year’s Nobel Prize Festival runs from January 8 to 31, 2023.
Too often, we forget that the small Caribbean island of Saint Lucia, with a surface area of 617 km2 and a population of nearly 190,000, has already produced two Nobel Prize winners: Derek Walcott, who received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1992, but also Arthur Lewis, who received the Nobel Prize for Economics in 1979.
This is an exceptional and unique fact in the world that Saint Lucians want to highlight by organizing the Nobel Laureate Festival every year throughout the month of January.
Some will say that two writers from Guadeloupe have also been awarded this prestigious prize –Saint-John Perse (Nobel Prize in 1960) and Maryse Condé (“Alternative” Nobel Prize in 2018) – but the Swedish Academy had specified that it had not been involved in the choice of the Guadeloupean writer…
In any case, for 30 years now, Saint Lucia has honored its two sons who were born on the same day : William Arthur Lewis was born on January 23, 1915 and Derek Alton Walcott on January 23, 1930. This Monday, January 23, 2023, these two birthdays sont celebrated.
This year, the theme of the Nobel Prize Festival, which takes place from January 8 to 31, is “Celebrating Excellence: Nurturing our Creativity, Consolidating our Legacy”. Several events have been set up by the organizers : lectures, literary evenings, Creole language evening, plays, exhibition, literary workshop, painting, awards ceremony etc. All Festival activities celebrating Saint Lucia’s cultural heritage are open to the public.
In addition, the government would like this great popular celebration around the two Nobel Prize winners to become an opportunity to attract visitors. Thus, this year, the Saint Lucia Tourist Board is organizing a contest allowing tourists from the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada and the Caricom States to win a five-night all-inclusive trip for two to a major hotel on the island.
