Carlton Lindsay Barrett, a Daily Trust newspapers contributor has been given a Lifetime Achievement Award for excellence in creative writing by the Institute of Arts and Culture at the University of Port Harcourt.
Also known as Eseoghene, Barret was one of several awardees honoured at the recent Gabriel Okara Literary Festival, organised to pay tribute to Nigeria’s great lyric poet and novelist Okara as he clocked 96 years of age.
Barrett is a Jamaican-born Nigerian poet, novelist, essayist, playwright, journalist and photographer, who since 1966 has lived in Nigeria and became a citizen in the mid-1980s. He initially drew critical attention for his debut novel, ‘Song for Mumu’. Recently it has been commended for its “pervading passion, intensity, and energy”, referred to as a classic, and features on “must-read” lists of Jamaican books. His other novels are Lipskybound, (1977) and Veils of Vengeance Falling (1985). Some of his plays are ‘Jump Kookoo Makka’, which was presented at the Leicester University Commonwealth Arts Festival in 1967, ‘Home Again’ performed by Wole Soyinka’s company.
