Celebrated Jamaican poet Lorna Goodison has won the 2026 Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry for Dante’s Inferno, her Caribbean-inspired reimagining of the 14th-century literary classic by Italian poet Dante Alighieri.
Goodison will receive the US$2,000 award for the book, published in 2025, which retells Dante’s journey through hell through a distinctly Jamaican and Caribbean perspective. The work draws on Jamaican language, folklore, culture and history while preserving the structure of the original epic.
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In a notable departure from Dante’s original, Goodison replaces the classical poet Virgil, who guides the journey, with Louise Bennett-Coverley, affectionately known as Miss Lou. The celebrated Jamaican poet and folklorist’s presence reflects Goodison’s commitment to placing Caribbean language and cultural identity at the centre of the work.
Poet, essayist, translator and biographer Rosanna Warren judged this year’s prize. She praised Goodison’s translation for transforming the iconic epic into a celebration of Caribbean vernacular and heritage.
The annual Derek Walcott Prize for Poetry is presented in partnership with the Derek Walcott Estate and the Derek Walcott Festival in Port-of-Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. It recognises a full-length poetry book by a living poet who is not a United States citizen and whose work was published during the preceding calendar year.
Goodison, who served as Jamaica’s first female Poet Laureate from 2017 to 2020, has built an acclaimed literary career spanning more than four decades. Her 1986 collection, I Am Becoming My Mother, won the Commonwealth Writers’ Prize for the Americas, while Oracabessa received the 2014 OCM Bocas Prize for Poetry.
Her work extends beyond poetry to short stories, essays and memoir. From Harvey River: A Memoir of My Mother and Her Island won British Columbia’s National Award for Canadian Non-Fiction in 2008 and was later featured as BBC Radio 4’s Book of the Week in 2009. In 2019, Goodison received the Queen’s Gold Medal for Poetry.
Her 2021 collection, Mother Muse, also explores the lives and contributions of influential Jamaican women, including Sister Mary Ignatius Davies, who mentored generations of musicians at Alpha Boys’ School, and dancer Anita “Margarita” Mahfood.
The Derek Walcott Prize adds another international distinction to Goodison’s career, recognising a body of work that brings Jamaican experiences and Caribbean creative traditions to a wider literary audience.
