Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Sv: Obituary: Binyavanga Wainaina

Binyavanga Wainaina, Kenyan Writer And LGBTQ Activist, Dies At 48

May 22, 20191:31 PM ET

Colin Dwyer

Twitter

Kenyan author Binyavanga Wainaina, seen here during a January 2014 interview in Nairobi, has died at the age of 48. A founder of the Nairobi-based literary network Kwani?, Wainaina had come out as gay in a country where homosexuality was illegal.

Simon Maina/AFP/Getty Images

Binyavanga Wainaina, the deeply influential Kenyan writer credited with founding the literary magazine and collective Kwani? and advancing the fight for LGBTQ rights in Africa, has died at the age of 48. The Caine Prize for African Writing, which Wainaina won in 2002, confirmed his death in a statement Wednesday.

"Binyavanga was unbound in his imagining — reminding us with art and characteristic playfulness, what English can look like when it's an African language. Unflagging in his generosity, unflinching and direct in his criticism, he produced work in his short life that will have impact longer lasting than those whose time here is twice as long," prize Chairperson Ellah Wakatama Allfrey said.

"On a deeply personal level, and as one who acknowledges the wings he gave to a generation of writers, I am bereft."

Tom Maliti, chairman of the Kwani Trust, told The Associated Press and The Guardian Wainaina died Tuesday night after an illness in Nairobi, Kenya's capital.

Wainaina stepped onto the world literary stage after his Caine Prize win more than a decade and a half ago — partly because of the win itself, which honored his "Discovering Home" as the best English-language short story by an African writer that year, and partly because of what he did with the winnings. The very next year, 2003, he founded Kwani?, a literary magazine and loose collective of writers that has fostered the work of many other young Kenyan writers.

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Two years after that, he instructed the Western world on "How to Write About Africa," in a witty, withering parody of the same name. The piece caught fire, and since its 2005 publication in Granta, the essay has become perhaps Wainaina's most widely known work.

"In your text, treat Africa as if it were one country. It is hot and dusty with rolling grasslands and huge herds of animals and tall, thin people who are starving. Or it is hot and steamy with very short people who eat primates. Don't get bogged down with precise descriptions. Africa is big: fifty-four countries, 900 million people who are too busy starving and dying and warring and emigrating to read your book. The continent is full of deserts, jungles, highlands, savannahs and many other things, but your reader doesn't care about all that, so keep your descriptions romantic and evocative and unparticular."

​

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From: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> on behalf of Ibrahim Abdullah <ibdullah@gmail.com>
Sent: Wednesday, May 22, 2019 4:26 PM
To: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Sv: Obituary: Binyavanga Wainaina

 

48 years. 

Sent from my iPhone

On 22 May 2019, at 20:14, 'Michael Afolayan' via USA Africa Dialogue Series <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> wrote:

I think when he announced his HIV infection some four or so years ago, he was 35/36 or so. He should be like 40-sh right now. He was a sound thinker!

MOA

On Wednesday, May 22, 2019, 2:40:55 PM CDT, Salimonu Kadiri <ogunlakaiye@hotmail.com> wrote:

​What was the age of Binyavanga Wainaina and what caused his (her) demise?

​S. Kadiri

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Från: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> för Toyin Falola <toyinfalola@austin.utexas.edu>
Skickat: den 22 maj 2019 11:36
Till: dialogue
Ämne: USA Africa Dialogue Series - Obituary: Binyavanga Wainaina

 

The prominent writer and gay activist is no more.

 

Toyin Falola

Department of History

The University of Texas at Austin

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