Benjamin Zephaniah

Benjamin Obadiah Iqbal Zephaniah (born 15 April 1958, Birmingham, England) is 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.

Benjamin Zephaniah

Zephaniah was a young black boy who had dyslexia and encountered Racism at his new school in Birmingham. He grew up in Wandsworth 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.