The passions of Derek Walcott. (Afro-American playwright)

WINNING THE NOBEL PRIZE HASN'T CHANGED HIS ASPIRATIONS, however IT'S PLAYED HAVOC WITH HIS EVERYDAY LIFE.

derek Walcott can't find the phone Seriously. It's single of those cordless models--the kind that enables you to talk, walk, chew gum do the dishes--and the author of poems has misplaced it. Now this would be faintly hilarious if it weren't thus frustrating: the thing has been ringing not upon and on since dawn.

In fact, the phone has been ringing relentlessly since Oct 8 the day Walcott awoke to find himself transformed in his bed into a Nobel Laureate. First, the Swedish Academy called with