“Nigerian filmmaker and novelist Bándélé (Burma Boy), who died in 2022, provides a fitting capstone to his career with this astonishing novel based on the life of Samuel Àjàyí Crowther.... an unforgettable chronicle of an extraordinary man.” — Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"Biyi was a unique, all-responsive talent . . . The more he achieved, the further he aimed" — Wole Soyinka
“The sinister aspect of history at the heart of Biyi Bándélé’s Yoruba Boy Running is the slave trade, whose malign influence continues into the present as the ‘spiritual scions’ of the novel’s corrupt tribal leaders ‘continue to sell their people to the highest bidder’… Àjàyí, the Yoruba boy of the title, is only one of the many lively characters in this early section, which has the aura of ancestral myth—a potent mix, as Wole Soyinka puts it in his introduction, ‘of the anecdotal, archival and inquisitional.’”
— New York Times Book Review
"I always had huge respect for [Biyi's] prolific, super-talented and fearless creativity" — Bernardine Evaristo
"Passionately committed to every venture, Biyi displayed great urgency in all his productivity. He was a beguiling mix of daring and reticence, self-confidence and humility, with bravely ambitious dreams" — Margaret Busby, Guardian (UK)
"[Biyi Bándélé's novels] are rewarding reading, capable of wild surrealism and wit, as well as political engagement, as is all his writing" — Independent (UK)
"Biyi Bandele was a titan, who did the heavy lifting and laid the foundations many British Nigerian writers & theatre makers walk on" — Inua Ellams
"Bandele, who is without doubt one of Africa's finest creative minds, built an extensive career across various creative spaces, achieving success in literature and film" — Brittle Paper
"Just when you think you know all the African slave heroes–those superhumans who were abducted and sold, only to rise above their condition and give back to the societies that sold or enslaved them–you meet Ajayi Crowther. Yoruba Boy Running, Biyi Bandele’s final gift to world literature, is as important and as riveting as it is generous, raising Ajayi Crowther to a place beside Olaudah Equiano , Frederick Douglass and Phillis Wheatley" — Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi
This is not just a magnificent saga of one man’s triumph over adversity, it is also an exploration of West African history; of a greedy, rapacious king and his cronies who collude with Europeans in selling their own people and another king who falls victim to gunboat diplomacy… there are so many more layers to this remarkable and original novel with its farce, wit, and lyrical perception of humanity.” — Historical Novels Review