Biyi Bamidele: Unassuming man with assuming postures

By Elizabeth Osayande

Following the death of Nigerian-born UK writer and director, Biyi Bamidele, on August 7 (aged 54), many fans and critics have been left to decipher who Bamidele truly was.

While little or nothing is known of his private life; and of his death, everything about his career is known, making him assume the title of the known unknown man.

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In the literary circle, Biyi Thomas-Bamidele’s voyage can be ascribed to a journey made by Destiny and not necessarily by Decision or Determination. From his love of books occasioned by a chance-change visit to the library in the company of his Dad, to his permanent sojourn in the United Kingdom on the occasion to receive an award, all point to why I chose to call Biyi Bamidele: The unassuming man with assuming postures. Who wouldn’t want to be like Bamidele?

Ten facts about the all-round-art man

He died in Lagos at age 54
Won his first writing award at 14, wrote his first novel at 16, and became an Art Editor at 21.
While his first short movie is Kiss, his first directed movie is Chimananda Adichie’s Half of a Yellow Sun.
He was the first outside North America and the UK to win the International Student Playscript competition in 1989.
His rejected manuscript in Nigeria, within a week, got publishers from Italy, Germany and UK.
In 1997, he did a successful dramatization of Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart.
He was named in 2006, one of Africa’s fifty most important artists by the Independent.
He directed the first Netflix Nigerian Original series Blood Sisters.
He was also an acclaimed photographer
Prior to his death, Biyi Bamidele would have recorded twain visits to Toronto International Film Festival. First was in 2013 to screen the movie: Half of A Yellow Sun, an adaptation of Chimananda Adichie’s book. And this year’s TIFF to screen Elesin Oba, the King’s Horseman (2022), the adaptation of Wole Soyinka’s Death and the King’s Horseman he directed Biyi for Ebony Life Media.