Place Name
Honours Linton Kwesi Johnson (born August 24, 1952), the Jamaican-born dub poet who became become Lambeth’s writer-in-residence in 1977. At the age of 11 he travelled to London to live in Brixton, joining his mother who had emigrated the previous year. After attending Tulse Hill School he went on to study sociology at Goldsmiths College. Although he had always written poetry, he began to be noticed in the early 1970s. By the end of the decade his work was being published and he began to record a series of albums including Making History in 1983. His poem Di Great Insohreckshan, his response to the 1981 Brixton riots, was the subject of a BBC Radio 4 programme in 2007. He has won a slew of awards and honours, among them the Golden PEN Award by English PEN for a Lifetime’s Distinguished Service to Literature. His middle name, Kwesi, is a Ghanaian name that is given to boys who, like Johnson, are born on a Sunday.
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