Dean Atta is a British poet of
Greek Cypriot
Greek Cypriots or Cypriot Greeks ( el, Ελληνοκύπριοι, Ellinokýprioi, tr, Kıbrıs Rumları) are the ethnic Greek population of Cyprus, forming the island's largest ethnolinguistic community. According to the 2011 census, 659,115 r ...
and Caribbean descent. He has been listed by ''The Independent'' newspaper as one of the 100 most influential
LGBT
' is an initialism that stands for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender. In use since the 1990s, the initialism, as well as some of its common variants, functions as an umbrella term for sexuality and gender identity.
The LGBT term ...
people in the United Kingdom. In 2012, his poem "I Am Nobody's Nigger", written in response to the use of the racial slur by the
murderers of Stephen Lawrence, achieved much social media coverage, and he was profiled in ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'', and changed its name in 1959. Along with its sister papers ''The Observer'' and ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardian'' is part of the Gu ...
''.
Born to a Greek mother and Jamaican father, he earned a BA degree (2006) in Philosophy and English from the
University of Sussex
, mottoeng = Be Still and Know
, established =
, type = Public research university
, endowment = £14.4 million (2020)
, budget = £319.6 million (2019–20)
, chancellor = Sanjeev Bhaskar
, vice_chancellor = Sasha Roseneil
, ...
, where he was president of the African Caribbean Society.
His poetry, which often deals with questions of identity and social justice, has been featured on
BBC Radio 4
BBC Radio 4 is a British national radio station owned and operated by the BBC that replaced the BBC Home Service in 1967. It broadcasts a wide variety of spoken-word programmes, including news, drama, comedy, science and history from the BBC' ...
, and he has been commissioned to write for museums and galleries including the
Keats House Museum, the
National Portrait Gallery, London,
Tate Britain
Tate Britain, known from 1897 to 1932 as the National Gallery of British Art and from 1932 to 2000 as the Tate Gallery, is an art museum on Millbank in the City of Westminster in London, England. It is part of the Tate network of galleries in ...
and
Tate Modern
Tate Modern is an art gallery located in London. It houses the United Kingdom's national collection of international modern and contemporary art, and forms part of the Tate group together with Tate Britain, Tate Liverpool and Tate St Ives. It ...
. In 2018, Atta served as a judge for the
BBC #REDIRECT BBC #REDIRECT BBC
Here i going to introduce about the best teacher of my life b BALAJI sir. He is the precious gift that I got befor 2yrs . How has helped and thought all the concept and made my success in the 10th board exam. ...
...
. For ''The Black Flamingo'', Atta was one of two winners of the
2020 in the Children's and Young Adults category.
*''I Am Nobody's Nigger'', Westborne Press, 2013 (shortlisted for the Polari First Book Prize)
*''The Black Flamingo'', Hachette UK, 2019
* ''Only On The Weekends'', 2022