Biyi Bandele in Frame: The Rain, the Remembrance
- Esther Oladimeji
- 3 hours ago
- 3 min read
“He didn’t just tell stories; he sculpted memory.” — Curatorial Note
A Life in Three Acts
Biyi Bandele-Thomas (13 October 1967 – 7 August 2022), known professionally as Biyi Bandele, was a Nigerian novelist, playwright, and filmmaker whose work bridged continents, genres, and generations.
Born in Kafanchan, Kaduna State, to a father who fought in the Burma Campaign during World War II, Bandele’s creative journey was shaped by history, identity, and the urgency of storytelling.
He studied Dramatic Arts at Obafemi Awolowo University, where he wrote Rain, a surreal two-hander about two street sweepers whose banter veered between madness, poetry, and political critique. The play won the International Student Playscript Competition in 1989 and was staged in Lagos that same year.
His portraits, taken by photographer Hakeem Shitta, capture a young artist already aware of his voice and the weight of his vision.
The Novelist
Bandele’s fiction was bold, dreamlike, and deeply rooted in African experience. His novels include:
The Man Who Came in From the Back of Beyond (1991)
The Street (1999)
Burma Boy (2007), a fictionalised account of Nigerian soldiers in World War II
Yorùbá Boy Running (2024), published posthumously, exploring the life of Samuel Ajayi Crowther
“Brilliant, original, and fearless.” — Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
The Playwright
Bandele’s plays were staged across Nigeria and the United Kingdom. His best-known works include:
Rain (1989) — staged in Lagos and later revived at Terra Kulture
Two Horsemen (1994) — winner of the London New Play Festival
Oroonoko (2000) — adaptation of Aphra Behn’s novel, winner of the BT Ethnic and Multicultural Media Award
The Filmmaker
Bandele brought African stories to global screens through film and television:
Half of a Yellow Sun (2013)
Fifty (2015)
Blood Sisters (2022), Nigeria’s first Netflix Original
Elesin Oba: The King’s Horseman (2022), which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival
The Mentors Behind the Vision
Bandele’s theatrical instincts were honed under the guidance of three major figures:
Professor Wole Soyinka, whose mythic and political approach to drama shaped Bandele’s worldview.
Professor Femi Osofisan, who deepened his understanding of ensemble theatre and Yoruba dramaturgy.
Professor Chuck Mike, whose experimental staging methods and Afrocentric vision inspired Bandele’s own sense of performance as activism.
Within the HSPACA archive, photographs of Soyinka’s Kongi’s Harvest and Osofisan’s Morountodun, Midnight Hotel, and The Chattering and the Song reveal the creative environment that shaped Bandele’s early years.
Legacy and Remembrance
Bandele was more than a writer or filmmaker; he was a conduit for memory, myth, and meaning. His life reminds us that art can be both personal and political, that beauty and resistance often share the same stage.
Through these photographs, we remember not just the faces but the force behind them: the rehearsal rooms, the street sweepers, the laughter and defiance that shaped a generation.
The Hakeem Shitta Photo and Cultural Archive (HSPACA) preserves these moments not as nostalgia but as living memory. A resource for scholars, artists, and future generations.
This article is part of the Hakeem Shitta Photo and Cultural Archive (HSPACA), a repository preserving Nigeria’s creative legacy through photography, performance, and cultural documentation.
🔗 Explore more: www.hspaca.org
About the Author
Esther Olufunmilayo Oladimeji is the Curator of the Hakeem Shitta Photo and Cultural Archive (HSPACA). She holds a first degree in Chinese Language and Culture and is currently working on her debut book exploring cross-cultural education and African creative identity.
Her work focuses on building accessible archives for African creative history and supporting emerging researchers in the humanities, especially those working across performance, visual culture, and oral history.
She believes that archives are not just repositories; they are living ecosystems of memory, emotion, and resistance.
Comments