It has been announced that popular Kenyan author and LGBT activist Binyavanga Wainaina has died at the age of 48. Wainaina, according to the Chairman of the Nairobi-based magazine, Tom Maliti, the founder of the literary magazine Kwani passed away after suffering a short illness. This was revealed today the 22nd of May after Maliti told The Daily Nation newspaper on Wednesday. 
Maliti said the writer died a few minutes past 10 pm (19:00 GMT) on Tuesday at a Nairobi hospital. Wainaina had won the Caine Prize for African Writing for his short story Discovering Home in 2002. Following the passage of a series of anti-gay laws across Africa in 2014, Wainaina publicly announced that he was gay. In December 2016, Wainaina posted on Twitter that he was HIV-positive. Time Magazine in 2014 included Wainaina in its list of the Most Influential People in the World. 
