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The author, essayist and campaigner - who also
championed African literature through the Kwani Trust he founded
with other writers - passed away in Nairobi on Tuesday, the
organization's chairman, Tom Maliti, said.
Wainaina's 2005 essay "How to Write About Africa", was a pointed
and hilarious lesson to would-be journalists and historians. Its
compilation of the absurd, yet all-too-common, clichés was a
call for more nuanced portrayals.
"Among your characters you must always include The Starving
African, who wanders the refugee camp nearly naked, and waits
for the benevolence of the West," Wainaina wrote in satirical
instructions to aspiring writers.
"Her children have flies on their eyelids and pot bellies, and
her breasts are flat and empty. She must look utterly helpless.
She can have no past, no history; such diversions ruin the
dramatic moment."
Wainaina won the prestigious Caine Prize for African Writing in
2002 for his short story collection "Discovering Home" and went
on to set up Kwani?, a literary journal dedicated to publishing
new writers from Africa.
LEGACY
"His legacy is Kwani? and the many new writers who were
contributors to that journal and for whom opportunities opened
up," said Maliti.
"Kwani? inspired a generation of writers younger than Binyavanga
to also write poetry, short stories, novels and writing became
something that people believed was a career that they could
pursue."
Wainaina, who announced in 2016 that he was HIV positive, had
been in and out of the hospital for the past year and suffered
several strokes, Maliti said. "He had been ailing for a while,"
he added, without going into further detail.
Wainaina was also known for his decision to live as an openly
gay man in Kenya, where gay sex is illegal under a colonial-era
penal code and homosexuality is taboo. A high court ruling on
whether to uphold that law is due on Friday.
In 2014, he spoke to the Guardian newspaper about his decision
to make his home in a Nairobi suburb, rather than abroad: "This
is my place ... I want to put a stake in the ground. My mum and
dad are not here. It's kind of my turn."
Both new and established writers posted tributes on Twitter,
many of them noting Wainaina's influence on their work.
"His writing packs a punch, makes you nostalgic and then leaves
you unsettled," wrote Archie Okeyo, who describes herself on her
Twitter profile as a Kenya-based writer.
"Binyavanga Wainaina was the public intellectual we needed but
didn't deserve. The world is worse off today without him to
challenge our prejudices and defend the humanity of everyone.
And now his watch is ended," wrote BBC Africa Business Editor
Larry Madowo.
(Reporting by John Ndiso; Writing by Maggie Fick; Editing by
Andrew Heavens)
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