Ben (Beenie) Mel is an African writer, a member of the global south, and a close ally of peoples degraded by racist ideas and policies. His works in both fiction and non-fiction center around the black experience, and when he is not writing, he is engaged in social activism in antiracist movements like the Black Lives Matter and Pan-Africanism movements with fellow activists who are striving to equate and empower racial and gender difference of all kinds. Ben divides his time between New York, California and Addis Abeba.