News at Eleven: This is as generous as the author [V.S. Naipaul] gets.

So far as he can see, [Derek] Walcott more or less realized his greatness in that early work, and for the rest of his career, which of course includes the 1992 Nobel Prize in Literature (Naipaul got his Nobel in 2001), he looked to fit himself to more cosmopolitan templates. Naipaul's implication is that the vast output that followed was a denouement, in some way even a betrayal, of what was greatest in the poet. Nowhere does he attempt to reckon with Walcott's changing ambitions. It is almost as if Naipaul cannot allow his fellow islander a place by his side on the dais.

from The Washington Post: View From the Summit
also The Washington Post: A Writer's People

~~~~~~~~~~~