Benjamin Obadiah Iqbal Zephaniah (born 15 April 1958, Birmingham

Birmingham

Birmingham is a city and metropolitan borough in the West Midlands of England. It is the most populous British city outside the capital London, with a population of 1,036,900 , and lies at the heart of the West Midlands conurbation, the second most populous urban area in the United Kingdom with a...

, England) is an English writer and dub poet

Dub poetry

Dub poetry is a form of performance poetry of West Indian origin, which evolved out of dub music consisting of spoken word over reggae rhythms in Jamaica in the 1970s....

. He is a well-known figure in contemporary English literature

English literature

English literature is the literature written in the English language, including literature composed in English by writers not necessarily from England; for example, Robert Burns was Scottish, James Joyce was Irish, Joseph Conrad was Polish, Dylan Thomas was Welsh, Edgar Allan Poe was American, J....

, and was included in The Times list of Britain's top 50 post-war writers in 2008.
Zephaniah was born and raised in the Handsworth

Handsworth, West Midlands

Handsworth is an inner city area of Birmingham in the West Midlands, England. The Local Government Act 1894 divided the ancient Staffordshire parish of Handsworth into two urban districts: Handsworth and Perry Barr. Handsworth was annexed to the county borough of Birmingham in Warwickshire in 1911...

 district of Birmingham, which he called the "Jamaican capital of Europe". He is the son of a Barbadian

Barbadian

Barbadian may refer to anything of or relating to Barbados and may also refer directly to:* Barbadian football* Barbadian cuisine* Barbadian dollar, a currency used in Barbados ISO 4217 code "BBD"....

 postman and a Jamaican nurse.