Bazawule, Blitz

Blitz Bazawule is a multidisciplinary artist born in Ghana. His feature directorial debut, The Burial of Kojo, premiered on Netflix. He co-directed Beyoncé’s Black Is King, which earned him a Grammy nomination, and will direct the musical version of The Color Purple for Warner Bros. His artwork has been featured at the Whitney Biennial. In The Scent of Burnt Flowers: A Novel (‎Ballantine Books), when the windshield of his Chevy Impala shatters in a dark diner parking lot in Alabama, Melvin moves without thinking. This time it is the safety of his fiancé, Bernadette, at stake. Impulse keeps them alive, and yet they flee with blood on their hands. With a persistent FBI agent on their trail, they travel to Ghana to seek the help of Melvin’s old college friend – who happens to be the country’s embattled president, Kwame Nkrumah. And the couple’s chance encounter with Ghana’s most beloved highlife musician, Kwesi Kwayson, sparks another leg of a journey full of suspense, lust, magic, and danger. What was meant to be a fresh start quickly spirals into chaos, threatening their relationship and lives. The Scent of Burnt Flowers merges political intrigue, magical encounters, and forbidden romance in an epic collision of morality and power.