Alex Alphonso Wheatle MBE (3 January 1963 – 16 March 2025) was a British novelist, who was sentenced to a term of imprisonment after the 1981 Brixton riot in London.[1]
Born on 3 January 1963 in London,[2][3] to Jamaican parents,[4] Wheatle spent much of his childhood in a Shirley Oaks Children's Home in Croydon.[5] At the age of 16, he was a founding member of the Crucial Rocker soundsystem; his DJ name was Yardman Irie. He wrote lyrics about everyday life in Brixton, south London. By 1980, Wheatle was living in a social services hostel in Brixton, and he participated[clarification needed] in the 1981 Brixton riots and their aftermath. While serving his resulting sentence,[clarification needed] he read authors such as Chester Himes, Richard Wright, C. L. R. James and John Steinbeck. Wheatle's cellmate, a Rastafari, was the one who encouraged Wheatle to start reading books and care about his education.[6] He featured aspects of his life in his books, such as East of Acre Lane characters Yardman Irie and Jah Nelson.
Wheatle spoke about the Brixton riots, most prominently in the 2006 BBC programme Battle for Brixton.[7] His early books are based on his life in Brixton as a teenager and his time in social services' care.[8]
He received the London Arts Board New Writers Award in 1999 for his debut novel Brixton Rock,[9] which was later adapted for the stage and performed at the Young Vic in July 2010.[10]
He wrote and performed Uprising, a one-man play based on his own life at Tara Arts Studios, Wandsworth, London. In 2011, he took Uprising on tour and performed it at the Writing On The Wall Festival, Liverpool, the Oxford Playhouse, the Marlowe Theatre, Canterbury, the Ilkley Playhouse and the Albany Theatre, Deptford.[citation needed] The play re-toured theatres and literature festivals in 2012, marking the 50th year of Jamaican Independence.[11]
Wheatle lived in London. He was a member of English PEN, and he visited various institutions facilitating creative writing classes and making speeches. He also narrated an audio guide to the streets of Brixton.[12]
Wheatle died from prostate cancer on 16 March 2025, at the age of 62.[13]
In the 2008 Birthday Honours, Wheatle was appointed Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) for services to literature.[14]
His young-adult novel Liccle Bit was longlisted for the Carnegie Medal in 2016.[5]
His 2016 book Crongton Knights won the 50th Guardian Children's Fiction Prize. S. F. Said, one of the judging panel, said of the book: "Wheatle's writing is poetic, rhythmic and unique, remaking the English language with tremendous verve. Though Crongton is his invention, it resonates with many urban situations, not only in Britain but around the world. Crongton Knights is a major novel from a major voice in British children's literature."[15][16] A 10-part TV adaptation of the Crongton books aired on BBC Three in March 2025.[17]
Wheatle's life story features in Alex Wheatle, the fourth film in Small Axe, a 2020 anthology of five films by Steve McQueen about the West Indian community in the UK during the 1970s and 1980s. Alex Wheatle depicts Wheatle's life up to and just after the Brixton uprising.[18][19][20]
In March 2024 the Arbeitskreis für Jugendliteratur, the German national section of IBBY, nominated Cane Warriors in the category Jugendbuch for the 2024 Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis.
Wheatle's books have also been translated into French, Italian, Urdu, Welsh, German, and Japanese.
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