Editing Benjamin Zephaniah (section)

{{Short description|British poet and author (1958–2023)}}{{EngvarB|date=November 2018}}
{{Use dmy dates|date=December 2023}}
{{Infobox writer <!-- for more information see [[:Template:Infobox writer/doc]] -->
| name         = Benjamin Zephaniah
| image        = Benjamin Zephaniah 20181206.jpg
| caption      = Zephaniah in 2018
| pseudonym    =
| birth_name   = Benjamin Obadiah Iqbal Zephaniah
| birth_date   = {{birth date|df=y|1958|04|15}}
| birth_place  = [[Handsworth, West Midlands|Handsworth]], Birmingham, England
| death_date   = {{death date and age|df=y|2023|12|07|1958|04|15}}
| death_place  = 
| occupation   = {{cslist|Poet|playwright|author|actor}}
| years active = 1980–2023
| genre        = {{cslist|Poetry|[[teen fiction]]}}
| subject      =
| movement     = {{cslist|[[Rastafari movement]]|[[postcolonialism]]|[[postmodernism]]}}
| notableworks =
| spouses      = {{ubl|{{marriage|Amina|1990|2001|reason=div}}|{{marriage|Qian Zephaniah|2017}}}}
| influences   =
| influenced   =
| website      = {{URL|https://benjaminzephaniah.com/}}
| module       = {{listen|pos=center|embed=yes|filename=Benjamin Zephaniah on music.mp3|title=Benjamin Zephaniah's voice|type=speech|description=Zephaniah talking about generational views of music and technology}}
}}

[[File:Benjamin Zephaniah - Who's Who (-Awen2015).webm|thumb|Zephaniah reciting a poem in 2015]]
''' Benjamin Obadiah Iqbal Zephaniah''' (15 April 1958 – 7 December 2023) was a British writer, [[dub poet]], actor, musician and professor of poetry and creative writing. Over his lifetime, he was awarded 20 honorary doctorates in recognition of his contributions to literature, education, and the arts. He was included in ''[[The Times]]'' list of Britain's top 50 post-war writers in 2008. In his work, Zephaniah drew on his [[lived experience]]s of incarceration, racism and his Jamaican heritage. 

He won the [[BBC Radio 4]] Young Playwrights Festival Award in 1998 and was the recipient of at least sixteen [[honorary doctorate]]s. A ward at [[Ealing Hospital]] was also named in his honour. His second novel, ''[[Refugee Boy]]'', was the recipient of the 2002 Portsmouth Book Award in the Longer Novel category. In 1982, he released an album, ''Rasta'', which featured [[The Wailers Band|the Wailers]] performing for the first time since the death of [[Bob Marley]], acting as a tribute to [[Nelson Mandela]]. It topped the charts in [[Yugoslavia]], and due to its success Mandela invited Zephaniah to host the president's Two Nations Concert at the [[Royal Albert Hall]], London, in 1996. As an actor, he had a major role in the BBC's ''[[Peaky Blinders (TV series)|Peaky Blinders]]'' between 2013 and 2022.

A [[Veganism|vegan]] and [[Animal rights movement|animal rights activist]], who called himself an [[Anarchism|anarchist]], Zephaniah supported changing the [[Parliament of the United Kingdom|British electoral system]] from [[First-past-the-post voting|first-past-the-post]] to [[Instant-runoff voting|alternative vote]]. In 2003, Zephaniah was offered appointment as an [[Officer of the Order of the British Empire]] (OBE) but publicly [[declining a British honour|rejected the honour]], stating that: "I get angry when I hear that word 'empire'; it reminds me of slavery, it reminds of thousands of years of brutality, it reminds me of how my foremothers were raped and my forefathers, brutalised".