The 2002 Caine Prize winner, Binyavanga Wainaina has passed on at the age of 48, the publication he founded announced.

The chairman of the Nairobi-based magazine disclosed on Wednesday that the Kenyan author and activist, founder of the literary magazine Kwani, passed away after a short illness.

Tom Maliti said the Kenyan writer passed on a few minutes past 10pm (19:00 GMT) on Tuesday at a Nairobi hospital.

The Kenyan author and activist 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 revealed that he was gay.

In December 2016, Wainaina posted on Twitter that he was HIV-positive.

The Time Magazine in 2014 have the inclusion of the Kenyan author and activist in its list of the "Most Influential People in the World".