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Or, Unikumbuke*

Nov 24, 2025

Hi! This post discusses a significant life event that requires money so if you’d like to make a gift, please feel free to message for M-PESA details or PayPal me (https://paypal.me/cmutanyi).

Either way— Thanks for reading this newsletter. A click of the ♡ button makes a difference. You can also share excerpts on social media, forward it to someone who might enjoy the vibes, or text it to a friend.

Reader,

In the last quarter of my 37th year, I have decided to go back to the place where my umbilical cord is buried to try and figure out what to do next with my life. It’s…not an easy decision (“Narudi Ocha” is not what I thought would be the soundtrack to this time in my life) but it’s one I am making because I know there are possibilities that exist beyond a city I love, even if it hasn’t always loved me back.

In the last two years or so, I’ve put on a brave face as I’ve applied for more jobs than I care to admit, attended interviews that have led nowhere, and gritted my teeth with more anxiety than any one person should experience in a lifetime. Then I was reminded by a dear friend who made a similar move that, despite narratives of failure when one quits, there also exists a world in which one is loved and doesn’t have to worry about where they lay their head.

I write this surrounded by moving boxes as I wind down decades of life in the place I’ve called home for over 3 decades; even when I lived outside the city. This, for me, is goodbye. I hope that getting the weight of surviving off my chest will let me breathe enough to dream — which is to say, I hope I can sleep without feeling like demons are at my heels.

If you came here for books: I have struggled to read in the last few months. Anhedonia plagues me, as old readers know, but this has been something wholly unprecedented. I have reached the end of the road and even books have not been the refuge they once were. I can’t say I’ll get back to making videos or blogging about the books I’ve read but not having to worry about daily living may just be a catalyst for new projects. I’m promising nothing, other than I’ll try things and share those attempts here.

I haven’t finished many books this month, for instance, but I’ve stayed on course with the 1000 Nights Challenge, which you can read about on my blog here and whose daily entries you can find here and that’s something to be proud of. The last year has made me consider my relationship with productivity in a world where money, and its acquisition, is its chief measure. What am I if not a wage earner? To what end do I write if there is no income to be made? Why think in public? I can’t say I’ll find the answers to these questions when I’m hundreds of kilometres outside the city, but it won’t hurt to not have to worry about rent when they cross my mind.

I don’t believe in narratives of “coming out” yet this feels like a public confession. Of what, I don’t quite know, yet I know from the range of reactions I have gotten that it hits a nerve to hear someone one regards as a peer say “I have given up on The Green City in the Sun.” If I had the friends Harper Lee had and got a year’s living expenses, maybe I’d stay, but I don’t have the book she had in my drafts. So off we go.

I don’t usually announce a hiatus but I’ll need some time to settle in, especially because my move coincides with the holidays. The earliest I’ll be back is January 2026 (most probably with a birthday wish list, which might be posted earlier on the official wishlist blog), though it might take longer than that to transition from “person who visits the village” to “permanent village resident”. In any case, without the jaunts I go on in Nairobi (Laps & Livres is, de facto, on hiatus) I’ll have a lot of time in my hands so check out my Twitter and Bluesky for personal updates (blog posts, life events, a job even) and my Storygraph and Letterboxd for the media I’ll be consuming.

If you’re wondering how to support me during the move and in the days ahead:

Money goes a long way so feel free to send M-PESA or USD via PayPal (paypal.me/cmutanyi)
Send opportunities my way (I can do research, reviews, write copy and much more besides; just shoot me an email - 100onbooks@proton.me)
If you’ve made a move like this, please tell me what you found helped the most with your transition
Send reading and watching recommendations (better yet, share a library card!)
Imagine what you’d like in this situation, and do it for me (this has yielded interesting results in my experience)

Take good care of yourself and each other and thanks for taking the time to read this far xx

Quick news/ things that may be of interest:

Treat someone you like (me, for instance, I have a Switch) to the Tiny Bookshop Game (which is also on Discord)
Subscribe to my WhatsApp channel for texts I find while I spend time online
Add me to your New York Times Crossword leaderboard!
If you’re in the Global North and would be open to engaging in the North-South solidarity that is sharing a library card, please email or message me so we can figure things out. Thank you!
A thread for folks looking to support Usikimye’s work
The Queer Liberation Library 🏳️‍🌈🏳️‍⚧️, which is free to join here
Film folks: The Japan Foundation has newly launched the JFF Theater online streaming platform
Digital Library of Korean Literature, which is free to join here
How to Write Alt Text and Image Descriptions for the visually impaired
An interactive self care flow chart
Links to Reading Lists, Free Books, Book Recs, Book-related Items, and Calls for Submissions in this document (most recent links at the top)
Since Elon seems to want (some of) us gone, I’m trying to post more often on Bluesky. Follow me there if you’re on it!
You can send me books, postcards, letters, and assorted items via PO Box 102439, Jamia Posta 00101, Nairobi, Kenya (I write back!)

I have finished the following books since I last wrote to you: The Phantom Plague: How Tuberculosis Shaped History by Vidya Krishnan (e-book and audiobook narrated by Sneha Mathan), The Best Short Stories 2023: The O. Henry Prize Winners; edited by Lauren Groff & Jenny Minton Quigley (e-book and audiobook narrated by Lauren Groff and a Full Cast), Everything Is Tuberculosis: The History and Persistence of Our Deadliest Infection by John Green (e-book and audiobook narrated by the author), A Minor Chorus by Billy-Ray Belcourt (e-book and audiobook narrated by Jesse Nobess), Heart Lamp: Selected Stories by Banu Mushtaq; translated from Kannada by Deepa Bhasthi (e-book and audiobook narrated by Deepti Gupta & Vikas Adam) and Bad Company: Private Equity and the Death of the American Dream by Megan Greenwell (e-book and audiobook narrated by the author). I’m primarily using Storygraph now (passively updating Goodreads as I read most e-books on Kindle via the library) and I hope to get back to making videos soon.

As ever, please write back to me and tell me what books you’re reading or looking forward to reading — it’s always a great time talking about books.

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