Biyi Bandele

thumb|Biyi Bandele Biyi Bandele (Born on the 13 of 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. Quotes How's the world treating you this morning?Like a baby treats a diaper. The street He coughed out the words, which took shape of his cigarette stained teeth turned into birds bereft of wing. He stammered the bloodied words into the palm of his hand, polished them into clearness with a stainless handkerchief, and gifted them with wings, and sent silence, where all words uttered in the universe, and in all languages on the planet, are stored for all time, or forgotten forever. The street Oi sweetheart, is your mummy a thief?No she's not.' she said, sucking her thumb to signal a temper tantrum.'Well, then, m'dear,' said the thief, 'who stole those diamonds and put them in your eyes? The street As Ossie Jones crept out of his body and into the mist, his heart murmured till it was silent. The street I think quite often it’s actually the control gatekeepers who say people won’t want to see this, people won’t come in I remember that during the first few previews there were people within the RSC at the time who saw the show, said it’s wonderful, but listen, if it doesn’t do good business, don’t worry, you know, we think you’ve done a wonderful job. It might play to fairly decent houses. The reviews came out and within two or three weeks the entire run was sold out. It was the same RSC audience When I try to, I suppose, psycho-analyse myself, I think the first thing is that I was born during a civil war, which I have no memories of but psychologically I feel as if I experienced it No matter how grim a situation is, there’s always at some point something in it that’s so absurd. And for me it’s always about trying to look for that thing, that epiphany – you just look for that ray of light and it’s always there. Astronomers call themselves blind watchers of the sky because they say everything they’re looking for is there but quite often, until they either have the knowledge or make themselves transparent to them, it doesn’t exist I’m my father’s son and my father was a pretty volatile person and I learned at a very, very early age that the world was a slightly unstable place and to survive I always had to have my wits on me You saw all the amputees, all the deranged ex-soldiers on the streets and prostitutes, women who lost their husbands. About a million people died in that war. And the landscape was just unstable I actually had a happy childhood. It might be a weird thing to say but my dad, when he wasn’t full of rage, was the funniest person you could be around. He had this what the French call joie de vivre, I mean he really did. He was a voracious reader and a great raconteur and I would just listen to him for hours. I remember sitting with him and with my brothers listening to him tell stories and I would look round and it’s hours later and my brothers have slipped out of the room and I’m the only one still there I just fell in love with books and so I started reading a lot, taking three or four books, finishing them, going back for more, and then I started writing. I just started imitating those writers I’d read and one day in school the teacher asked every one of us what we wanted to be when we grew up and I said I wanted to be a writer. By the time I was twelve my first short story was published in the local newspaper. I took it in and handed it to them and said I’d been sent to drop it off by my father. It was called The Pickpocket Archive Interview • BIYI BANDELE • 2006 If there’s an opportunity anywhere in the world, I say you should go, definitely go. But wherever you go, cherish yourself and your culture because that’s ultimately what defines you. If you go, thinking you are escaping something from Nigeria, you will eventually encounter something worse. Go. By all means, go. Remember though, every country in the world has its own serious problems, right now especially Writers and artists are meant to be visionaries, people who go into dark places and shed light on it. It’s unfortunate when they become the people who actively spread prejudice, who spread ignorance, who spread stupidity and malice which quite often is what you get “My Comprehension of Extra-Verbal Hausa Culture Is Much More Sophisticated Than My Comprehension Of Yoruba Culture” – Biyi Bandele: An Interview,Fatima Salihu External link Biyi Bandele quotes by Biyi Bandele Thomas Category:1967 births Category:2022 deaths Category:Authors from Nigeria