Benjamin Zephaniah

Biography

Benjamin Obadiah Iqbal Zephaniah was a British writer, dub poet, and Rastafarian whose work drew on his experiences of incarceration, racism, and Jamaican heritage. He won the BBC Radio 4 Young Playwrights Festival Award in 1998 and was included in The Times list of Britain's top 50 post-war writers in 2008. Zephaniah also had a notable role in the BBC's Peaky Blinders from 2013 to 2022, released an album in 1982 featuring Bob Marley's last performance with the Wailers, and was awarded numerous honorary doctorates for his contributions to literature and education.