Two years after novelist, playwright, film director and “fabu master”, Biyi Bandele passed, his family finally spoke about his last days.
The Guardian piece by Alex Clark opens with – “In early August 2022, Biyi Bándélé had a conversation with his editor, Hannah Chukwu, about the novel he was working on, Yorùbá Boy Running, after which he sent her a revised version of the manuscript. On the following day, the 54-year-old film-maker, playwright and novelist took his own life, leaving behind an impressive and strikingly varied body of work: the film adaptation of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun, which took seven years to make; stage versions of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart, Aphra Behn’s Oroonoko and Lorca’s Yerma; poetry, screenplays and several novels including 2007’s Burma Boy, which told the story of his father’s harrowing and brutal experiences as a British army soldier in the second world war. His was a talent unrestrained by genre, medium, geography or period.”
The revelation around the circumstances of the passing of the prodigously talented Biyi has opened a fresh floodgates of tributes from collaborators, admirers, readers and fans.
Lawyer and writer Deji Toye captured it succinctly on X:
Recalling her father’s life especially his posthumous novel, Yoruba Boy Running, Temi told The Guardian that ” “He really wanted it to be the beginning of multiple conversations that would happen when he wasn’t here,” says Temi. “I think he was ready to give that to the world.”
Her mother also shares the same sentiments – “He started writing at 13, so he had been writing for 40 years. And he’d achieved so much in that time with his novels and his plays and his films, he had told so many stories. I love the way that Temi’s putting it: this was the conversation that he wanted to start, because conversation with Biyi could be endless.”
An interesting conversation to have would have been his take on the forthcoming TV adapatation of Things Fall Apart which he famously adapted to stage.
