Nussaibah Younis

Nussaibah Younis (born August 1986) is an English writer, academic and former consultant and humanitarian worker known for her expertise on contemporary Iraq. Her debut novel Fundamentally won a Comedy Women in Print Prize among other accolades.

Early life Younis was born in Manchester to an Iraqi father and a Pakistani mother and grew up in a Muslim household in Manchester and Leeds. The 2003 invasion of Iraq had a "huge impact" on her family. She attributes her career and journey to her desire to help and learn more about her father's country. Younis attended Altrincham Grammar School for Girls, completing her A Levels in 2004. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts (BA) in Modern History and English from Merton College, Oxford. During her time at Oxford, she became features editor of Cherwell. She went on to complete a Master of Arts (MA) and a PhD in International Affairs at Durham University.

Career After completing her Durham PhD, Younis undertook a post-doctoral fellowship at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. She then worked at the Atlantic Council as director of the Future of Iraq Task Force. As of 2018, she was a Senior Fellow and Advisor to the European Institute of Peace. She was also an Associate Fellow of Chatham House and a Visiting Fellow of the European Council on Foreign Relations.

From 2019 to 2020, through a non-profit organisation, Younis was an adviser to the Iraqi government on and designer of deradicalisation programmes for women allegedly involved with the Islamic State. Younis had turned down a non-fiction deal, as she felt a non-fiction book on the subject would only appeal to her colleagues and she wanted her work to be enjoyable to a wider audience. She sought to balance comedic elements with serious topics and to satirise international aid in the line of Evelyn Waugh's Scoop (1938) and the BBC Two sitcom W1A,

Fundamentally won the Published Novel and Readers' Choice categories at the 2025 Comedy Women in Print Prize. It was shortlisted for the 2025 Women's Prize for Fiction, the 2025 Books Are My Bag Readers' Awards and the 2025 Bollinger Everyman Wodehouse Prize. Younis was named one of the 10 best new novelists of 2025 by The Observer. She was also nominated for The Times Breakthrough Prize at the 2025 Sky Arts Awards. Younis is in the process of adapting Fundamentally for television and writing her second novel. Books Are My Bag Readers' Awards Fiction

Published Novel

Readers' Choice 2026 British Book Awards Debut Book of the Year