Kenyan writer Binyavanga Wainaina at the Brooklyn Book Fest, 2009. Wainaina, 48, passed away on Tuesday, May 22, in Nairobi, Kenya. Photo via Nightscream, CC BY 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons. It’s been a little over 24 hours since Kenyan writer Binyavanga Wainaina left this world, but his presence and impact continues to reverberate around the globe. The outspoken, openly gay writer rebuked convention and challenged the status quo, triggering a literary revolution that would open the door to thousands of aspiring writers ready to change the narratives in and about Africa. The writer, educator and LGBTQ activist, Binyavanga Wainaina, 48, passed on Tuesday, May 22, in Nairobi, Kenya, after a brief illness. Today's got me thinking: what will your life mean when it's all over? Binyavanga's death has got me thinking about who I was about five or so years ago, and also who he was to us as young enthusiastic Africans hungry for a different paradigm of our continent and our selves. — Fungai Machirori (@fungaijustbeing) May 22, 2019 Within minutes, Wainaina’s friends, followers and admirers flooded social media to swap tributes and memories while arguing which of his prolific writings had the most influence. Wainaina is best known for his provocative essay, “How to Write About Africa,” published in Granta magazine in 2006. He's also known for his 2012 memoir, “One Day I Will Write About This Place,” and the essay, “I am a homosexual, mum,” published simultaneously in Chimurenga and Africa is a Country in 2014. The essay caused a powerful stir on Twitter as people tried to parse fact from fiction, and subsequently, Time magazine named Wainaina one of the top 100 most influential people in the world. In “How to Write About Africa,” Wainaina called out Western media and the aid industry — both particularly present in Nairobi — for perpetuating negative stereotypes about the continent of Africa, through scathing satire. Never have a picture of a well-adjusted African on the cover of your book, or in it, unless that African has won the Nobel Prize. An AK-47, prominent ribs, naked breasts: use these. If you must include an African, make sure you get one in Masai or Zulu or Dogon dress. “His sarcasm was dripping — a stellar scalpel,” writes Nigerian writer Nwachukwu Egbunike. Widely cited by academics, non-governmental organizations and aid workers, the essay — also published as a small booklet — has had a profound impact on perceptions of Africa and continues to circulate, surprise and provoke. On its impact, journalist Pernille Bærendtsen writes: For me, this essay has followed me since I received it as a gift in 2008 by a Kenyan friend. I clearly belonged to the group of people Binyavanga addressed: A development worker employed by a Danish NGO in Tanzania writing about its ‘impact.’ This was at a point when the development and aid industry sharpened its rhetoric in favor of fundraising at the cost of unfolding the contrasting diversity on the ground. I had plenty of reason to feel embarrassed, but I also had time to plan how to change. Binyavanga later explained in the journal Bidoun how this essay randomly came to life with double-effect: By exposing and describing the insecurity of “novelists, NGO workers, rock musicians, conservationists, students, and travel writers,” who read these “guidelines” on how — or maybe rather how not to — write about Africa, they then began to ask for his approval. Wainaina, a son of a Kenyan father and Ugandan mother, continued to challenge stereotypes about Africa with his groundbreaking 2012 memoir, “One Day I Will Write About This Place.” Through rich, searing detail, he transported readers from his childhood in the ‘70s in Kenya to his student days in South Africa, where he spent many years in exile. Critics hailed the book as raw and honest, but Wainaina later admitted that he’d left out an important chapter — his love life. With “I am a homosexual, mum,” Wainaina became the first high-profile Kenyan to come out as openly gay on social media, triggering an avalanche of social opinion. Considered “the lost chapter” from his memoir, Wainaina imagines coming out as gay to his dying mother. His essay was timely as a wave of anti-gay crusades and legislation were being proposed in Uganda and later Tanzania, where homosexual acts remain criminalized. However, unlike other writers who went into exile, Wainaina returned home, and as Nanjala Nyabola points out for BBC on Twitter, “that was major”: For those of us who grew up with "the best Kenyan writers" (whatever that means) living in exile, jailed and persecuted, or poor and under appreciated, or censored heavily, he came back and that was major. He was a complex man, but I think for this he deserves endless gratitude.