Biyi Bandele, Writer and Director of ‘Half of a Yellow Sun,’ Dies at 54

thewrap.com:

tweeted, writing separately: “Today we mourn the sudden loss of acclaimed novelist and filmmaker Biyi Bandele.”Netflix Nigeria’s official Twitter account called Bandele’s passing “a monumental loss to Nigeria’s film and creative industry.” “He will be remembered as a powerhouse who made some of the finest films out of Africa,” the post continued. “As we mourn him, we commiserate with his family, friends and colleagues.

May he rest in power.”Read on for more tributes to Bandele.I pause to mourn soulful Biyi Bandele, eponymous scion of the Burma Boy, Solomon Bamidele Thomas, aka Tommy Sparkle, grandson of railways man of rustic Kafanchan.

Biyi was a time machine in a dreamy realm called Nigeria where tragedy and triumph twin to meet a world at war. Adieu pic.twitter.com/Fhk1FOB0AnIf Biyi Bandele had written a memoir, it could’ve been titled Kafanchan Boy.

His memories of that railway town are a recurring motif in his art. He wrote about the Northern society with charming clarity, and with neither condescension nor otherizing of the people as subaltern.