The Nigerian novelist, playwright, and filmmaker, Biyi Bandele was a true-born creative who told classic Nigerian stories, sometimes in the Yoruba language, to a global audience.
He was a serial storyteller and Renaissance man, who explored a variety of creative avenues in order to share his vision and voice.
His directorial debut was in 2013 with Half of a Yellow Sun, based on the 2006 novel of the same name by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
He was the creator and co-director of the popular Netflix TV series Blood Sisters, as well as the author of the coming-of-age war novel Burma Boy. He had recently finished Elesin Oba: The King’s Horseman, a film based on Wole Soyinka’s famous drama.
He started young, winning his first literary award at just 14.
Biyi Bandele was born to Yoruba parents in Kafanchan, Kaduna State, Nigeria, in 1967.
He was the author of several novels, beginning with The Man Who Came in From the Back of Beyond (1991), as well as writing stage plays, before turning his focus to filmmaking.
His father Solomon Bandele-Thomas was a veteran of the Burma Campaign in World War II, while Nigeria was still part of the British Empire.
Bandele spent the first 18 years of his life in the north-central part of the country, later moving to Lagos, then in 1987, he studied drama at Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife, having already begun work on his first novel.
He won the International Student Play Script competition of 1989 with an unpublished play, Rain, before claiming the 1990 British Council Lagos Award for a collection of poems.
In 1990, he moved to London at the age of 22, armed with the manuscripts of two novels. His books were published, and he was given a commission by the Royal Court Theatre.
Bandele was also awarded an Arts Council of Great Britain writers bursary to continue his writing in 1992.
Career
Bandele’s writing encompassed fiction, theatre, journalism, television, film, and radio.
He worked with the Royal Court Theatre, and the Royal Shakespeare Company, as well as writing radio dramas and screenplays for television.
His plays include Rain; Marching for Fausa (1993); Resurrections in the Season of the Longest Drought (1994); Two Horsemen (1994), selected as Best New Play at the 1994 London New Plays Festival; among others.
In 1997, Bandele did a successful dramatization of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart.
His 2007 novel, Burma Boy, reviewed in The Independent by Tony Gould, was called “a fine achievement” and lauded for providing a voice for previously unheard Africans.
His directorial debut film, Half of a Yellow Sun based on the 2006 novel of the same name by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie was screened in the Special Presentation section at the 2013 Toronto International Film Festival, and received a “rapturous reception”. The film received a wide range of critical attention.
His new film, entitled Fifty, was included in the 2015 London Film Festival.
He also directed the third season of the popular MTV drama series, Shuga.
A true African thinker with a fierce spirit of independence and creativity, Biyi was driven by a love for culture and story. He passed on in Lagos on 7 August 2022.
The 54-year-old creative’s demise has left a vacuum in the West African arts community. He understood how to work across the media, making Nigerian stories relevant and in the process elevating Nigerian culture, playing it out in global popular culture.