Benjamin Zephaniah

Benjamin Obadiah Iqbal Zephaniah (15 April 1958 – 6 December 2023)Gregory, Andy (2002), International Who's Who in Popular Music 2002, Europa, p. 562. . was a British Jamaican writer, dub poet and Rastafarian. He was included in The Times list of Britain's top 50 post-war writers in 2008.

Zephaniah was a young black boy who had dyslexia and encountered racism at his new school in Birmingham. He grew up in Handsworth up until the age of 9 when his mother who was also a Jamaican nurse who fled from his father who was a postman back in Barbados, leaving his twin sister Velda and other siblings. Zephaniah felt isolated as being a young black boy with a disability.

Zephaniah faced prejudice frequently while residing in London and was involved in the racial riots of the 1980s: "They happened all around me. Racism was really evident back then. The National Front opposed foreigners and people of color, and the police were also very racist."

Zephaniah died on 6 December 2023 because of a brain tumor at the age of 65.

References

Other websites




 Merope Mills, "Rasta poet publicly rejects his OBE", The Guardian, 27 November 2003.
 Benjamin Zephaniah – from The Black Presence in Britain
 Benjamin Zephaniah on Poetry, Politics and Revolution – video report by Democracy Now!

Category:Writers from London
Category:British poets
Category:Rastafari
Category:1958 births
Category:2023 deaths
Category:People with dyslexia
Category:Black British people
Category:Deaths from brain cancer