Carlton Lindsay Barrett (born 15 September 1941), also known as Eseoghene, is a Jamaican-born poet, novelist, essayist, playwright, journalist and photographer, whose work has interacted with the Caribbean Artists Movement in the UK, the Black Arts Movement in the US, and pan-Africanism in general. Leaving Jamaica in the early 1960s, he moved to Britain, where he freelanced as a broadcaster and journalist, also travelling and living elsewhere in Europe, before deciding to relocate to West Africa. Since the latter 1960s he has been based mainly in Nigeria, of which country he became a citizen in the mid-1980s, while continuing his connection to cultural ventures in the UK and US.
Barrett initially drew critical attention for his debut novel, Song for Mumu, which on its London publication in 1967 was favourably noticed by such reviewers as Edward Baugh and Marina Maxwell (who respectively described it as "remarkable" and "significant");Baugh, Eddie (November 2006), "Confessions of a Critic" , Journal of West Indian Literature (15:1/2), pp. 15–28. more recently it has been commended for its "pervading passion, intensity, and energy",Hena Maes-Jelinek, "The Novel 1950 to 1970", in Albert James Arnold, Julio Rodríguez-Luis, and J. Michael Dash (eds), A History of Literature in the Caribbean, Vol. 2: English- and Dutch-speaking regions, John Benjamins Publishing, 2001, p. 140. referred to as a classic, and features on "must-read" lists of Jamaican books.Davidson, Gwyneth Harold (16 August 2015), "10+ Jamaican Books That I Would Consider a Must Read", gwynethharold.
Particularly during the 1960s and 1970s, Barrett was a participant in significant drama and film projects in Britain, and became well known as an experimental and progressive essayist, his work being concerned with issues of black identity and dispossession, the African Diaspora, and the survival of descendants of black Africans, now dispersed around the world.Margaret Alic, "Barrett, Lindsay 1941–", Encyclopedia.com.
One of his sons is the Nigerian writer A. Igoni Barrett, with whom he has also worked professionally."Nigerian Author Fights Brain Drain", Jamaica Gleaner, 22 May 2011.A. Igoni Barrett, "I Want to Be a Book: On Becoming A Writer", The Millions, 28 September 2012.
Life in Jamaica
Lindsay Barrett was born in Lucea, Jamaica, into an agricultural family. His mother died giving birth to him. His father, Lionel Barrett, was a lifelong farmer and senior agriculturist with the Jamaican Ministry of Agriculture; his great-uncle, A. P. Hanson, founded the Jamaica Agricultural Society in the early 1930s.Lindsay Barrett's biographical note under his article "Can UNIDO’s agribusiness dream build peace in Africa?" Making It Magazine, 21 August 2012. When he was five years old, Lindsay went to live with his grandparents, Joseph and Ella Barrett, because his father had to go on an assignment to another part of the Caribbean. In a 2025 interview, Barrett said:
Barrett attended Clarendon College in Jamaica, and he has written that he was inspired to decide to live in Africa by a visit that pan-Africanist Dudley Thompson paid to the school in 1957: "In that visit he spoke eloquently of the cultural links that existed between Africa, especially Ghana, and Jamaica. He told us that the future held great potential for the restoration of our souls if we found ways to renew our links with the continent."Ben Asante, "Lindsay Barrett: An amazing story", This Day Live, 20 September 2016.
After graduating from high school in 1959 Barrett worked as an apprentice journalist at the Daily Gleaner newspaper and for its sister afternoon tabloid The Star, gaining popularity as a columnist writing on entertainment and the music business. In early 1961, he became a news editor for the Jamaica Broadcasting Corporation, where his mentor was the Jamaican journalist and political analyst John Maxwell.
Move to Europe: 1962–66
Less than a year later, Barrett moved to England, where he worked as a freelancer for the BBC World Service in London and for the Transcription Centre,Herdeck, Donald E. (ed.), "Barrett, C. Lindsay (a.k.a. Eseoghene)", in Caribbean Writers: A Bio-Bibliographical-Critical Encyclopedia, Three Continents Press, 1979, pp. 25–26."The Transcription Centre: An Inventory of Its Records in the Manuscript Collection at the Harry Ransom Humanities Research Center", Texas Archival Resources Online. an organisation that recorded and broadcast the works of African writers in Europe and Africa.Dennis Duerden, Transcripts of "Africa, West Indies and United States, Black Artists and Writers, 1962-1967", Center for Research Libraries, 2012. (Contributors: Mongo Beti, Athol Fugard, Lindsay Barrett, Wole Soyinka, Imamu Amiri Baraka, John P. Clark, Lewis Nkosi, Barry Reckord, John Nagenda, Ivan Van Sertima, Langston Hughes, Frank Kobina Parkes, Orlando Patterson, Robert Serumaga, Andrew Salkey, Edward Ricardo Braithwaite, Oscar R. Dathorne, James Baldwin, Jay Saunders Redding, Martin Carter, Derek Walcott, Wilson Harris, George Lamming, Aimé Césaire, Archives of Traditional Music.)"Dennis Duerden collection of sound recordings relating to African novelists, poets, playwrights, artists and musicians; African history, politics, and social questions". Indiana University, Bloomington.
In 1962, Barrett went to France, and during the next four years travelled throughout Europe and North Africa as a journalist and feature writer. While in Paris, he was associated with many notable black poets and artists, including Langston Hughes, Lebert "Sandy" Bethune,Arnold Rampersad, The Life of Langston Hughes: Volume II: 1914–1967, I Dream a World, Oxford University Press, 1988, p. 406. Ted Joans,Ted Joans, "A Memoir", Black World, September 1972, p. 17. Beauford Delaney and Herb Gentry."Michel Fabre and John A. Williams′ A Street Guide to African Americans in Paris mentions a happy evening that Beauford spent here in the company of fellow painter Herb Gentry and writer Lindsay Barrett." Les Amis de Beauford Delaney. In 1966, Barrett's booklet The State of Black Desire (three poems and three essays "focusing on the theme of black alienation, exile, and black art"),09: Nine are chosen...". NLNG - The Magazine, 9 March 2010, p. 18. illustrated by St. Kitts painter Larry Potter,"Potter, Larry (Hugh Lawrence). (Mount Vernon, NY, 1925-Paris, France, 1966)", aavad.com. was one of the first publications of the press of the Paris bookshop Shakespeare and Company.Michel Fabre, "Literary Coming of Age in Paris", in From Harlem to Paris: Black American Writers in France, 1840–1980, Illini Books, 1993, p. 257. Referencing this debut work by Barrett, South African poet Keorapetse Kgositsile wrote in Black World that the language here "is part of the creation, a concrete vehicle carrying this big chunk of history smoking red straight from life.... Here are emotional, memorial, ideological attitudes which, if you want to commit to language, you have to go way beyond the limitations of English to embrace and sing...."
Barrett's first novel, Song for Mumu, was written between April 1962 and October 1966, and published in London by Longman in 1967.
Writing in 2023 at the age of 82, Barrett would say: "I left Jamaica without informing any member of my family that I would do so in my nineteenth year and so my twenties were spent in absolute exile from the heart of my upbringing. Whenever anyone asked me then what my objective for the future was I always told them I would be going to Africa to find out what the true character of my history really was. I must admit that the decision to do so at that time was based on romantic assumptions and naivete rather than on any well considered realistic plan of action, However, in the five years that I spent in Europe at that time I underwent an apprenticeship in feature writing and freelance broadcasting that was unparalleled. Instead of pursuing formal academic training as most of my peers were doing at that time I became a fanatic devotee of creative writing."Lindsay Barrett (17 September 2023), "Recognising The Arrival Of Age: A Reflection", Leadership News, Nigeria.
Migration to Africa: 1966 onwards
In February 1966, Barrett left Paris to travel to Dakar, Senegal, for the first World Festival of Black Arts (1–24 April 1966).Anthony James Ratcliff, "Liberation at the End of a Pen: Writing Pan-African Politics of Cultural Struggle" (2009). Dissertation. Paper 74, p. 97: "Only a handful of progressive creative intellectuals associated with the 'new' Black Consciousness movements in North America were even able to attend the Festival and other events throughout Dakar, such as Jamaican poet-novelist Lindsay Barrett, Hoyt Fuller, poets Sarah Webster Fabio and Keorapetse Kgositsile." There – described by Negro Digest as "the fireball from Jamaica""Writers Seen at the Festival Scene", Negro Digest, June 1966, p. 50. – Barrett organised a poetry-reading session at the US Cultural Center.Hoyt W. Fuller, "World Festival of Negro Arts – Senegal fete illustrates philosophy of 'Negritude, Ebony, Vol. 21, No. 9, July 1966, p. 104. Photograph captioned: "At poetry reading session in the American Cultural Center, Jamaican writer Lindsay Barrett provokes listeners with verse and commentary. Facing Barrett is Russian poet Yevgeny Yevtushenko who attended reading at invitation of the Center." His plan had been to "visit and if possible work in Nkrumah's Ghana, for a short while after the festival. Unfortunately, by the time the festival ended Nkrumah was no longer on the seat in Ghana."
Having had in Paris a friend from Sierra Leone, Barrett decided that would be the first West African country where he would spend some time, and during the few months he was there (one of his hosts being the then Vice-Chancellor of the University of Sierra Leone, Professor Davidson Abioseh Nicol), he began work as a correspondent for West Africa magazine. Visiting Nigeria in July that year, Barrett took up residence there; he recollects being urged to go there by the writer John Pepper Clark, whom he had met in London in 1961, and whose play The Raft had influenced Barrett's own decision to begin writing plays, particularly one called Jump Kookoo Makka (which, like The Raft, would be performed at the Leicester University Commonwealth Arts Festival in 1967).Anote Ajeluorou, interview with Lindsay Barrett. The Guardian (Nigeria), 17 October 2009. He has said: "I came to Nigeria directly because I was influenced by her literature. I came to Africa because I wanted to renew the spirit of ancestral hope. I felt that there was hope in knowing where you came from and that we could renew our links, that we could strengthen our systems."Anote Ajeluorou, "Nigerian Literature At Odds With Her Poor Politics - Barrett" (interview), The Guardian (Nigeria), 2 April 2016.
From 1966 to 1967, Barrett was Secretary of the Mbari Artists Club, which was "a hub of literary and cultural activities" in Ibadan: "We were in a historic, literary setting," he recalled, "when the civil war broke out and disintegrated everything."Anote Ajeluorou, "Echoes of Okigbo’s poetic legacy at Ibadan reading tour", NBF Topics, 13 May 2009. He was Director of the East Central State Information Service during the Nigerian Civil War under Chief Ukpabi Asika.Ozolua Uhakheme, "My role in civil wars, by Lindsay Barrett", The Nation, 28 August 2011.