As the world prepares for the Premiere of ‘Fifty’ the movie, #OSG sheds some light on a man regarded as one of the most versatile and prolific of the UK-based Nigerian writers, having turned his hand to theatre, journalism, television, film and radio, as well as the fiction with which he made his name.
In honour of this talented filmmaker, here are 10 things you probably didn’t know about him.
*He was born 48 years ago in Kafanchan, which is a small town in Kaduna state, North-West, Nigeria.
*Bandele spent the first 18 years of his life in the northern part of Nigeria being most at home in the Hausa cultural tradition.
*At age 14, his ambition to be a writer began to take shape when he won a short-story competition.
*He studied drama at the Obafemi Awolowo University, Ile-Ife.
*In 1989, he won the international Student Playscript competition with an unpublished play, Rain.
*A year later, he won the British Council Lagos Award for an unpublished collections of poems.
*He later moved to the UK where he became one of the most versatile and prolific novelist. He has written five novels: The Man Who Came In From the Back of Beyond (1991); The Sympathetic Undertaker: and Other Dreams (1991); The Street (1999); Burma Boy (2007): and The King’s Rifle (2009).
*He is a playwright. In 1997 he adapted Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart for the stage. He has also worked with Royal Court Theatre and the Royal Shakespeare Company in England.
*He made his directional debut with the film adaptation of Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie’s book “Half of A Yellow Sun”.
*Bandele also directed season 3 and season 4 of MTV’s Shuga series.
