42 Facts About Benjamin Zephaniah

Benjamin Obadiah Iqbal Zephaniah was a British writer, dub poet, actor, musician and professor of poetry and creative writing.

Benjamin Zephaniah was included in The Times list of Britain's top 50 post-war writers in 2008.

Benjamin Zephaniah won the BBC Radio 4 Young Playwrights Festival Award in 1998 and was the recipient of at least sixteen honorary doctorates.

Benjamin Zephaniah Obadiah Iqbal Springer was born on 15 April 1958, in the Handsworth district of Birmingham, England, where he was raised.

Benjamin Zephaniah referred to this area as the "Jamaican capital of Europe".

Benjamin Zephaniah wrote that he was strongly influenced by the music and poetry of Jamaica and what he called "street politics", and he said in a 2005 interview:.

Benjamin Zephaniah was educated at Broadway School, Birmingham, from which he was expelled aged 13, unable to read or write due to dyslexia.

Benjamin Zephaniah was sent to Boreatton Park approved school in Baschurch, Shropshire.

Benjamin Zephaniah had earlier been turned down by other publishers who did not believe there would be an audience for his work, and "they didn't understand it because it was supposed to be performed".

Benjamin Zephaniah was poet-in-residence at the chambers of Michael Mansfield QC, and sat in on the inquiry into Bloody Sunday and other cases, these experiences led to his Too Black, Too Strong poetry collection.

Benjamin Zephaniah published several collections of poems, as well as novels, specifically for young people.

In May 2011, Benjamin Zephaniah accepted a year-long position as poet-in-residence at Keats House in Hampstead, London, his first residency role for more than ten years.

In 2016, Benjamin Zephaniah wrote the foreword to Angry White People: Coming Face-to-Face with the British Far Right by Hsiao-Hung Pai.

Zephaniah's frank autobiography, The Life and Rhymes of Benjamin Zephaniah, was published to coincide with his 60th birthday in 2018, when BBC Sounds broadcast him reading his own text.

Benjamin Zephaniah made minor appearances in several television programmes in the 1980s and 1990s, including The Comic Strip Presents.

Benjamin Zephaniah was the "castaway" on the 8 June 1997 episode of the BBC Radio 4 programme Desert Island Discs, where his chosen book was the Poetical Works of Shelley.

In 2005, BBC One broadcast a television documentary about his life, A Picture of Birmingham, by Benjamin Zephaniah, which was repeated by BBC Two on 7 December 2023.

Between 2013 and 2022, Benjamin Zephaniah played the role of preacher Jeremiah "Jimmy" Jesus in BBC television drama Peaky Blinders, appearing in 14 episodes across the six series.

In 1982, Benjamin Zephaniah released the album Rasta, which featured the Wailers' first recording since the death of Bob Marley as well as a tribute to the political prisoner Nelson Mandela.

Benjamin Zephaniah released a total of seven albums of original music.

Benjamin Zephaniah became a vegetarian at the age of 11, and then became a vegan at the age of 13, when he read poems about "shimmering fish floating in an underwater paradise, and birds flying free in the clear blue sky".

Benjamin Zephaniah spoke extensively about his personal experiences of anti-Black racism in Britain and incorporated his experiences in much of his written work.

In 2012, Benjamin Zephaniah worked with anti-racism organisation Newham Monitoring Project, with whom he made a video, and Tower Hamlets Summer University about the impact of Olympic policing on black communities.

In November 2003, Benjamin Zephaniah was offered appointment in the 2004 New Year Honours as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire, for which he said he had been recommended by Tony Blair.

Benjamin Zephaniah spoke in favour of a British Republic and the dis-establishment of the Crown.

In 2016, Benjamin Zephaniah curated We Are All Human, an exhibition at London's Southbank Centre presented by the Koestler Trust, which exhibited art works by prisoners, detainees and ex-offenders.

Benjamin Zephaniah was a supporter of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and joined demonstrations calling for an end to the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands, describing the activism as the "Anti Apartheid movement".

Benjamin Zephaniah was a supporter of the BDS movement.

In 1998, Benjamin Zephaniah was a winner of the BBC Young Playwrights Festival Award with his first ever radio play Hurricane Dub.

Benjamin Zephaniah was awarded at least 16 honorary doctorates, by institutions including the University of North London, the University of Central England, Staffordshire University, London South Bank University, the University of Exeter, the Open University, the University of Westminster, the University of Birmingham and the University of Hull.

Benjamin Zephaniah collected the award at The Cambridge Folk Festival on 2 August 2008, describing himself as a "Rasta Folkie".

Benjamin Zephaniah lived for many years in east London; however, in 2008, he began dividing his time between a village near Spalding, Lincolnshire, and Beijing in China.

Benjamin Zephaniah was a keen language learner and studied Mandarin Chinese for more than a decade.

Benjamin Zephaniah was married for 12 years to Amina, a theatre administrator.

In 2017, Benjamin Zephaniah married Qian Zheng, whom he had met on a visit to China three years earlier, and who survives him.

In May 2018, in an interview of BBC Radio 5 Live, Benjamin Zephaniah admitted that he had been violent to a former partner, confessing to having hit her.

Benjamin Zephaniah's family was Christian but he became a Rastafarian at a young age.

Benjamin Zephaniah died on 7 December 2023, at the age of 65, after being diagnosed with a brain tumour eight weeks previously.

Fiona Bruce, the presenter of BBC's Question Time, on which Benjamin Zephaniah was a regular panellist, paid tribute to him, saying: "He was an all round, just tremendous bloke" for whom she had "huge affection and respect".

Linton Kwesi Johnson spoke to the political classes, but Benjamin Zephaniah was a humanist, he made poetry popular and loved music.

Benjamin Zephaniah did what John Cooper Clarke did with poetry and that was bringing it into the mainstream.

An artwork featuring Benjamin Zephaniah that appeared on the wall of an underpass in Hockley, Birmingham, in March 2024 was accidentally painted over by a council sub-contractor employed to remove graffiti, although Benjamin Zephaniah's family had been given assurances that the mural would be protected.