Books: The Stockholm Syndrome: Is the Nobel a Curse?

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Walcott's daily life is hectic. As the co-writer of the book and lyrics for Paul Simon's long-awaited musical The Capeman, he has a Broadway opening this month--an unusually suspenseful opening. The Capeman, which tells the story of Salvador Agron, a Puerto Rican teen who killed two white youths in a Manhattan playground in 1959, has been plagued by a drumbeat of doomsaying in the New York media, last-minute changes and a postponed opening date. The Nobel curse may be chasing Walcott, but his productivity seems unaffected. His most recent book of poetry, The Bounty, was published last summer to good reviews, and his next book--a collection of his paintings accompanied by a long poem--is due to appear later this year.

The Nobel Prize isn't perfect. Not every great writer wins, and not every winner is a great writer. Still, the Nobel does bring the one thing every writer can always use, besides a nice house on a bay: self-confidence. "You could say, 'Oh, yes, it was time the prize was given to a black woman or to a Caribbean writer,'" says Walcott. "But one likes to believe that it is based on merit, even if it sounds flattering to say that." Sometimes literature's kiss of death, it seems, can be the breath of life. --By Walter Kirn. With reporting by Andrea Sachs/New York