Nussaibah Younis - Fundamentally

We are absolutely delighted to announce that we have Nussaibah Younis joining us here at The Heath Bookshop talking about their new book, 'Fundamentally'. They will be interviewed by Leo Vardiashvili, author of Hard By A Great Forest.

Nussaibah and Leo will be in conversation for around an hour. There will be a book signing afterwards.

Dr Nussaibah Younis is a peacebuilding practitioner and a globally recognised expert on contemporary Iraq. For several years, she advised the Iraqi government on proposed programs to de-radicalise women affiliated with ISIS. She studied at Oxford, Durham and Harvard Universities, and has a PhD in International Affairs. Dr Younis was a Senior Fellow at the Atlantic Council in Washington DC, where she directed the Task Force on the Future of Iraq. She has published Op-Eds in the Wall Street Journal, the Guardian, and the New York Times. She was born in the UK to an Iraqi father and a Pakistani mother, and currently lives in London.

Fundamentally:

‘By normal, you mean like you? A slag with a saviour complex?’

When academic Nadia is disowned by her puritanical mother and dumped by her lover, she decides to make a getaway – accepting a UN job in Iraq. Tasked with rehabilitating ISIS women, Nadia becomes mired in the opaque world of international aid, surrounded by bumbling colleagues.

But then Nadia meets Sara, a precocious and sweary East Londoner who joined ISIS at just fifteen, and she is struck by how similar their stories are. Both from a Muslim background, both feisty and opinionated, with a shared love of Dairy Milk and rude pick-up lines, Sara and Nadia immediately connect and a powerful friendship forms. When Sara confesses a secret, Nadia is forced to make a difficult choice.

A bitingly original, wildly funny and razor-sharp exploration of love, family, religion, radicalism, and the decisions we make in pursuit of connection and belonging, Fundamentally upends and explores a defining controversy of our age with heart, complexity and humour – delivered by one of the most fearless and talented new voices in contemporary fiction.

Praise for Fundamentally:

'Not only hysterically funny but trenchant and necessary. I loved it'  India Knight

'Younis is a fantastic comic writer: caustic, pitiless, unafraid, with razor-sharp powers of observation. The book is laugh-out-loud funny, and many of the jokes, besides being hilarious, are jaw-dropping in their audacity... Fundamentally is certainly a wild ride, but besides being one of the most entertaining novels I've read in a long while, it will also leave you deeply moved and (incidentally) much better informed than you were before about one of the key political crises of our time. Essential reading.' Jonathan Coe