Context: Refugees, Asylum & Modern Britain
The Story Behind the Story
Benjamin Zephaniah published Refugee Boy as a novel in 2001. It tells the story of Alem Kelo, a fourteen-year-old boy whose father brings him to England to escape the violence of the Ethiopian-Eritrean conflict. The novel was adapted for the stage by poet and playwright Lemn Sissay, himself a man with personal experience of displacement and the care system. Understanding why this story was written — and who wrote it — is essential for the Edexcel exam.
Benjamin Zephaniah is a British-Jamaican poet and activist known for championing refugee rights. He wrote Refugee Boy to give a human face to the asylum debate and challenge negative media portrayals of refugees in Britain.
The Ethiopian-Eritrean Conflict
The conflict between Ethiopia and Eritrea is central to the play. Eritrea was part of Ethiopia until it gained independence in 1993 after a thirty-year war. However, a border dispute erupted into full-scale war between 1998 and 2000, killing tens of thousands of people. Civilians with ties to both countries — like the Kelo family — were caught in the middle, persecuted by both sides.
In the play, Alem’s father is Ethiopian and his mother is Eritrean. This mixed heritage makes the family a target for both governments. They are considered traitors by Ethiopia for having an Eritrean family member, and enemies by Eritrea for the same reason in reverse. This impossible situation — belonging to two nations and being rejected by both — drives the entire plot.
AO3 requires you to show understanding of context. In your essays, you must explain why Alem and his family are fleeing, not just that they are fleeing. Reference the Ethiopian-Eritrean conflict specifically. Explain that mixed-heritage families were persecuted by both sides. This shows you understand the real-world situation that drives the play’s events.
The UK Asylum System
When Alem arrives in Britain, he enters the asylum system. An asylum seeker is someone who has fled their country and is asking another government for protection. The process involves applying, attending hearings, and waiting — sometimes for months or years — for a decision. During this time, asylum seekers often face hostility, suspicion, and bureaucratic indifference.
Zephaniah wrote the novel at a time when British tabloid newspapers frequently portrayed asylum seekers negatively, using language like “bogus” and “scrounger.” The play directly challenges this by placing the audience inside Alem’s experience. We see the fear, the loneliness, and the arbitrary nature of a system that holds a child’s future in its hands.
The play challenges negative stereotypes about asylum seekers by showing Alem as an intelligent, kind, and resilient young person. Zephaniah’s purpose is to create empathy and make the audience question the way Britain treats those seeking refuge.
Benjamin Zephaniah: Poet and Activist
Zephaniah (born 1958, Birmingham) is one of Britain’s most prominent performance poets. He grew up experiencing racism in 1970s Britain and has been a lifelong campaigner for social justice, animal rights, and refugee rights. He famously rejected an OBE in 2003, saying the “Empire” in the honour reminded him of slavery and colonialism. His personal experience of prejudice in Britain directly informs the play’s portrayal of the racism Alem faces. Zephaniah has spoken publicly about being stopped by police as a young man simply because of his skin colour, and about the casual racism of everyday life in England. These experiences give Refugee Boy its emotional honesty — Zephaniah is not writing about racism from a distance, but from lived experience.
Lemn Sissay adapted the novel for the stage, bringing his own deeply personal perspective. Sissay was born to an Ethiopian mother in England and spent his childhood in care homes and foster families. His life experience mirrors aspects of Alem’s story, giving the adaptation emotional authenticity. In adapting the novel, Sissay condensed the plot, added theatrical techniques like direct address and ensemble playing, and heightened the emotional impact of key scenes. The stage version is more compressed than the novel but retains its central message about empathy and justice.
Understanding the differences between novel and play is useful for AO3 (context). The stage adaptation makes Alem’s isolation more immediate because the audience watches it happen in real time, rather than reading about it after the fact.
Key Contextual Ideas for the Exam
When writing about context in the post-1914 play essay, you must connect contextual knowledge to specific moments in the play. Useful contextual threads include: the Ethiopian-Eritrean war and its impact on mixed-heritage families; the UK asylum process and its dehumanising bureaucracy; British media hostility towards refugees in the early 2000s; Zephaniah’s personal experience of racism and his activist purpose; and Sissay’s own background in the care system. Each of these can be embedded naturally into an essay about characters, themes, or staging.