Dream on Monkey Mountain and Other Plays

By Derek Walcott

Book Overview

On a Caribbean island, the morning after a full moon, Felix Hobain tears through the market in a drunken rage. Taken away to sober up in jail, all that night he is gripped by hallucinations: the impoverished hermit believes he has become a healer, walking from village to village, tending to the sick, waiting for a sign from God. In this dream, his one companion, Moustique, wants to exploit his power. Moustique decides to impersonate a prophet himself, ignoring a coffin-maker who warns him he will die and enraging the people of the island. Hobain, half-awake in his desolate jail cell, terrorized by the specter of his friend's corruption, clings to his visionary quest. He will try to transform himself; to heal Moustique, his jailer, and his jail-mates; and to be a leader for his people. Dream on Monkey Mountain was awarded the 1971 Obie Award for a Distinguished Foreign Play when it was first presented in New York, and Edith Oliver, writing in The New Yorker, called it "a masterpiece."

Three of Derek's Walcott's most popular short plays are also included in this volume: Ti-Jean and His Brothers; Malcochon, or The Six in the Rain; and The Sea at Dauphin. In an expansive introductory essay, "What the Twilight Says," the playwright explains his founding of the seminal dramatic company where these works were first performed, the Trinidad Theatre Workshop.

First published in 1970, Dream on Monkey Mountain and Other Plays is an essential part of Walcott's vast and important body of work.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0374508607
• ISBN13: 9780374508609
• Release Date: January 1971
• Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
• Length: 336 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.0" x 5.5" x 8.2"

Customer Reviews

nice surprise

I had to order this book for a class and was not really looking forward to reading it, however, I must say the plays are EXCELLENT. There is a reason Walcott has been so well received among the literary world. These plays are interesting and very imaginative, plus Walcott always gives your vocabulary a good work out!

Walcott is an interesting writer

This was required for a theatre class. To get the full gist of this play you need to research African roots, myths, and superstitions. I Enjoyed it.

Nice play

I had to read it a few times to understand what was really going on. Because it is written in a Creole dialect it was some what hard to understand, but if you re-read where you are confused you can easily figure it out. It's a very nice story about a poor, old, sad black man, and his yearning for home.

Genius!

Walcott is a genius. These early works are among the first indications that he was to be a the literary master.

Very interesting

I did this book for my literature class and I thought it was vey interesting. It reminded me somewhat of Ralph Ellison's "Invisible Man". This book is vey interesting and is written by a man who is basically a minority where he is from due to his religion and up bringing. The book's main character is Makak who is ashamed of his identity as a black man and idealizes the moon because it is white. Eventually he learns to accept himself as he is.