Beginner’s pluck: Full-time writer Nussaibah Younis

Her first ever piece of writing was printed and pasted up in her school.

“My teacher loved it so much. It was the first time I’d been recognised for anything.” 

She became political as a teenager, after the invasion of Iraq.

I gave assemblies in school and got into a fight with an MP.

After postdoc work in Harvard, Nussaibah became a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council in Washington DC, on a taskforce for the Obama administration.

“After two years I moved to peace giving work on the future of Iraq, and afterwards in Iraq as a peacebuilding practitioner. We did post conflict reconciliation work.”

Eventually she designed a deradicalisation programme for ISIS women, with the aim of sending them home.

“It was hugely challenging.”

Before starting to write, Nussaibah took a standup comedy course in London, writing things from her job, to see what the class found funny. 

She sold the manuscript in September 2023, in a 10-way auction, with an eight-way auction for the TV rights: “I’m writing the screenplay myself.”

Who is Nussaibah Younis?

Date/ place of birth: 1986/ Manchester.

Education: Altrincham Girls Grammar School, Manchester; Oxford University, Modern History and English. University of Durham, PhD in Arabic and Contemporary International Relations.

Home: Highbury, London.

The day job: Full-time writer.

In another life: “I have a really cool hobby. I’m an Olympic style weightlifter.”

Favourite writers: Perceval Everett; Melissa Broder; Ottessa Moshfegh; Yasmin Zaher; Evelyn Waugh.

Second book: “It’s set in an old estate in Ireland.”

Top tip: “There’s no substitute for the hours you sit strapped to that chair.”

Instagram: @nussaibahyounis

The debut

Fundamentally

Weidenfeld & Nicholson, €17.99/ Kindle, €11.03

When Nadia accepts a job in Iraq to head up a programme to deradicalise ISIS women, her main aim is to get away from England, where she’s been disowned by her mum, and dumped by her lover. 

But meeting Sara, a feisty East Londoner who joined ISIS at 15, changes her entire mindset.

The verdict: Informative, funny, clever, and quite beautifully observed.