8 writers and poets who turned down an honour from Queen Elizabeth II

A few writers were awarded an honour from the queen this year, but not everyone is happy to accept one.

Philip Pullman, Julia Donaldson, Chris Riddell, and Margaret Atwood have all been announced in the New Year’s Honours list this month for services to the Arts and Literature. They join a host of big names such as Quentin Blake, Mary Beard, and Jacqueline Wilson.

For others, however, recognition from the establishment is not the great honour others feel it is.

Benjamin Zephaniah~ Poet

The poet, writer, and reggae artist turned down his OBE in 2003 publicly.

He told the press: “Me? I thought: ‘OBE – me?’ Up yours, I thought.

“I get angry when I hear that word ‘empire’; it reminds me of slavery, it reminds of thousands of years of brutality, it reminds me of how my foremothers were raped and my forefathers brutalised.”

“I am not one of those who are obsessed with their roots, and I’m certainly not suffering from a crisis of identity; my obsession is about the future and the political rights of all people.

“Benjamin Zephaniah OBE – no way, Mr Blair, no way Mrs Queen. I am profoundly anti-empire.”

Yasmin Alibhai-Brown~ Writer

Journalist and author originally accepted her MBE in order to please her mother but later returned it.

Writing in 2006 she said: “I was stupid once and allowed myself to accept an MBE, partly to please my mum, who was always afraid that my big mouth would get us deported from here, as we were from Uganda.

“Then the poet Benjamin Zephaniah shamed me live on Channel 4 news, just as the Iraq war was building up and my republicanism was solidifying.

“I returned the lovely object and have had to put up with scorn ever since, some deserved.

“But I now speak with the zeal of a convert. The honours system sucks and we should start again, devise a fair and independent new method to annually acclaim exceptional citizens for their contribution to the nation, not to overweening political parties or the semi-skilled, dysfunctional Windsors.”

Stephen Hawking- Scientist and Writer

Speaking in 2008 Stephen Hawking explained how he had been offered a knighthood in the late 1990s, but declined the invitation.

It has since been reported that his decision was based on the fact the UK government disappointed him with their handling of science funding.

Alan Bennett~ Poet

In 1988 Alan Bennett turned down the offer of becoming a CBE and also rejected his knighthood in 1996.

The playwright and author said that the reason for doing so was because he did not see himself as a knight.

“I felt that, in my case, it just wouldn’t suit me, that’s all. It would be like wearing a suit every day of your life,” he explained.

Roald Dahl~ Author

The children’s writer was never very enamoured with authority and the establishment so it came as no surprise to many of us when he turned down his OBE from the queen in 1986.

C.S. Lewis~ Author

The Chronicles of Narnia author declined a CBE in 1952, in an attempt to avoid association with any political issues.

J. G. Ballard~ Novelist

Novelist James Graham ‘JG’ Ballard, a self-proclaimed republican, said he could not accept an OBE awarded by Queen Elizabeth II.

“There’s all that bowing and scraping and mummery at the palace. It’s the whole climate of deference to the monarch and everything else it represents.

“They just seem to perpetuate the image of Britain as too much pomp and not enough circumstance. It’s a huge pantomime where tinsel takes the place of substance. A lot of these medals are orders of the British Empire, which is a bit ludicrous. The dreams of empire were only swept away relatively recently, in the 60s. Suddenly, we seem to have a prime minister who has delusions of a similar kind.

“It goes with the whole system of hereditary privilege and rank, which should be swept away. It uses snobbery and social self-consciousness to guarantee the loyalty of large numbers of citizens who should feel their loyalty is to fellow citizens and the nation as a whole. We are a deeply class-divided society.”