FUNDAMENTALLY WITH NUSSAIBAH YOUNIS

Author Nussaibah Younis celebrates the paperback release of her acclaimed first novel Fundamentally, the fiery, fresh and tender story of an academic tasked with rehabilitating ISIS women in Iraq.

When academic Nadia is disowned by her mother and ditched by her girlfriend, she decides to flee the scene, taking a job spearheading a new UN taskforce in Baghdad. Her objective is to deradicalise the women of ISIS, no mean feat given the sticky, slow-moving bureaucracy of international aid work and her hapless colleagues. She strikes up a surprising kinship with Sara, an East London girl who joined ISIS as a teenager and whose story and personality mirror her own. When Sara confesses something to her, Nadia is torn between her professional ethics and her desire to help a friend. What follows is a fiercely funny and tender exploration of love, family, faith and connection that cuts to the quick of one of the defining controversies of our time.

Nussaibah Younis is a writer, academic and former consultant and humanitarian worker known for her expertise on contemporary Iraq. Now available in paperback, Fundamentally was shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction and won the Published Novel category of the Comedy Women in Print Prize. Nussaibah will be discussing the novel in conversation with Rubina Pabani, a Margate-based broadcaster and co-host of the Brown Girls Do It Too podcast.