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Concept
Biyi Bandele
Summary
Biyi Bandele (born Biyi Bandele-Thomas; 13 October 1967 – 7 August 2022) was a Nigerian novelist, playwright and filmmaker. 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 directorial debut was in 2013 with Half of a Yellow Sun, based on the 2006 novel of the same name by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie.
Bandele was born to Yoruba parents in Kafanchan, Kaduna State, Nigeria, in 1967. 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. In a 2013 interview with This Day, Bandele said of his ambitions to become a writer: "When I was a child, I remembered war was something that sprang up a lot in conversations on the part of my dad. ... That was probably one of the things that turned me into a writer." When he was 14 years old he won a short-story competition.
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 He won the International Student Playscript competition of 1989 with an unpublished play, Rain, before claiming the 1990 British Council Lagos Award for a collection of poems.
He moved to London in 1990, at the age of 22, armed with the manuscripts of two novels. In 1991, his debut novel The Man Who Came in From the Back of Beyond was published, followed by The Sympathetic Undertaker: and Other Dreams, and he was given a commission by the Royal Court Theatre. In 1992, he was awarded an Arts Council of Great Britain writers bursary to continue his writing.
Bandele's writing encompassed fiction, theatre, journalism, television, film and radio.
He worked with London's Royal Court Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company, as well as writing radio drama and screenplays for television.
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