From a New York Times story by Anderson Tepper headlined “A Provocateur’s Legacy Shapes African Writing”:

The Kenyan writer Binyavanga Wainaina was many things in his short, frenetic life: memoirist and roving essayist, trailblazing editor and publisher, agitator and activist.

After winning the Caine Prize for African Writing in 2002, he used his prize money to finance a new literary journal, Kwani? (“So what?” in Nairobi slang), helping to promote a generation of Kenyan and African writers. His 2005 essay in the British literary journal Granta, “How to Write About Africa,” eviscerated timeworn Western tropes about Africa and African writing.