Benjamin Solah is a writer of truth, fiction and poetry, a spoken word artist and revolutionary socialist. His words and stories have been presented on pages, screens, through microphones on stages, and even through megaphones at protests and demonstrations. Raised in Campbelltown in the South-West of Sydney, he currently lives in Brunswick West, Melbourne where he is studying a BA in Creative Writing at RMIT University.
His writing is influenced by his opposition to capitalism and it’s many horrors, Marxism, horror and speculative fiction as well as realist novelists such as John Steinbeck and Upton Sinclair. His spoken word also draws on influences from revolutionary orators such as Mario Savio and hardcore metal music. His work is unashamedly left-wing and politically motivated.
He has been published in various places including the Overland website, the Geek Mook, The Emerging Writer, LiteraryMinded, Liticisms, The Specusphere, Socialist Alternative and sa.org.au, The Hope anthology, Social Alternatives, the RMIT Creative Writing anthology and various anthologies by eMergent Publishing.
He has performed poetry at Passionate Tongues, The Dan O’Connell, Midsumma Festival, Occupy Melbourne, Keep Left and is the co-convener of the Percy Shelley Poetry Slam and the editor of MelbourneSpokenWord.com.
He is a revolutionary socialist of the Trotskyist tradition, a member of the organisation Socialist Alternative and is involved with the Refugee Action Collective and the refugee campaign, as well as been involved in the APEC demonstrations in Sydney in 2007, protests against the Cronulla riots, the war in Iraq, attacks on Palestinians as well as for same-sex marriage rights, Palestine and worker’s rights. He was also involved in Occupy Melbourne.
Benjamin Solah 