blog: Started reading 'Fundamentally'

src/content/blog/2026-03-15-started-reading-fundamentally.md

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+---
+title: 📖 Started reading "Fundamentally" by Nussaibah Younis
+date: 2026-03-15T17:27:13.661Z
+slug: 2026-03-15-started-reading-fundamentally
+author: Thomas Wilson-Cook
+tags: 
+  - journal
+  - reading
+
+---
+I picked up the 2025 Women's Prize shortlister "Fundamentally" by Nussaibah Younis.  This was a Christmas gift from a family member, after I remember putting it down on my list because it ended up on a few end of year lists.
+
+I remember being intrigued by the author.  That she'd written this piece of fiction based heavily on her own experience in the humanitarian sector, working on deradicalisation at the UN.  
+
+At their worst, books like this can turn into strange power fantasies, or self-mythologies that strip away a lot of the nuance.  It's how we can end up with the Manic Pixie Dream Girl ([wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manic_Pixie_Dream_Girl)) or Mary Sue ([wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Sue))[^1].
+
+I like Younis' interview in the Womens Prize ([link](https://womensprize.com/in-conversation-with-nussaibah-younis/)) because it seems like she might have gone the reverse direction, where the novel came after (or was part of) deconstructing that self-aggrandising narrative:
+
+> I studied Arabic, read a lot of books, got a PhD. Then I went to Iraq. The trouble is, having an Iraqi father did not make me Iraqi, and having a PhD did not make me competent. I was just another idiot foreigner; well-meaning but totally out of my depth. I spent ten years as an NGO worker, trying to ‘save Iraq.’ I lived an insane life, pursuing hair-brained schemes to ‘build peace.’ My naivety shone like a spotlight as I played out my brown saviour fantasies, all the while being mocked and extorted by locals. Before long, I was embroiled in the farcical humanitarian sector. I’d started out by asking: how can I help? But soon I was asking: how can I maximise my budgets? How can I curry favour with corrupt Iraqi ministers? And how can I screw over my rivals? As a workplace, humanitarianism is as aggressive as investment banking, except that lives hang in the balance
+
+Like I said, I'm only really about an hour in but as I hurtle towards page 100 (the point at which I give myself complete freedom to did-not-finish a book), I can easily foresee making my way through this one.
+
+[^1]: While one can gender the Mary Sue to a "Gary Stu" or "Marty Stu" , it's interesting that the Manic Pixie Dream Girl archetype relies a bit more on gender dynamics.  I certainly don't think we see any Manic Pixie Dream Boys, and personally I wouldn't care to.

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