NAIROBI 22 May (ANA) - Prize-winning Kenyan writer Binyavanga Wainaina has died after a short illness at the age of 48.

 

He won the Caine Prize for African writing in 2002 and was best known around the world for his satirical essay How to Write About Africa.

 

Wainaina was also named among Time Magazine's 100 most influential people in 2014 for his gay rights activism.

 

He "demystified and humanized homosexuality" author Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie wrote at the time.

 

Wainaina was one of the first high-profile Kenyans to openly declare he was gay and "he felt an obligation to chip away at the shame" that people felt about being gay, Adichie added.

 

Homosexual relations are currently illegal in Kenya but the Supreme Court is due to rule on Friday whether to overturn the law banning them.

 

If life was a highway, Wainaina stayed on the fast lane. And when he swerved, he barely stepped on the brakes.

 

Wainaina kept tongues wagging and people breathless almost all his life. He shot to global fame in 2002 when he won the Caine Prize for African Writing for his short story, Discovering Home.

 

He then set up a literary magazine, Kwani, as a platform for emerging writers. Several contributors to the magazine world subsequently won the Caine Prize too.

 

In 2014, his personal life took centre stage when he told the world he had known he was gay since he was five.

 

A year later, he suffered a stroke. The next year, in 2016, he announced he was HIV-positive on World Aids Day. In 2018, against all odds, he said he would marry his boyfriend in South Africa.

 

Wainaina will not have his wedding. But he leaves behind an LGBT community in Kenya, many of whom were emboldened by his bravery.

 

He suffered a stroke in 2015.

 

His brother James Wainaina told the BBC that his family wants to celebrate his life.

 

"We are in a life celebration mood, we're looking at this from a human level; it's a human story.

 

"Allow that humanness to shine, people are hurting," he said.(ANA)

FA/ANA/22 May 2019-------