Dear Readers, 

SALAMWALAYKUM

Firstly I want to say a HUGE thank you for pre:ordering, Daughters of the Nile. I’m not sure why I have put a semi colon between ‘pre’ and ‘order’ but for some reason it feels ‘right’. I’m like one of those Gen Z’s that Jodie Foster recently called ‘annoying’ after she told one off for having loads of spelling mistakes in their email and they replied, ‘spelling correctly is quite limiting’. Although I’m not a Gen Z actor, I’m a Millennial Writer and don’t worry I can assure you I spell checked Daughters of the Nile at least twice. So don’t be worrying about that. 

I’m writing this note to say thank you for the support. You guys are my ride or die. You're practically family to me. (Some of you actually are but… shhh). Thank you for having the forward thinking minds to pre-order/ pre order my book almost a year to six months before it is released. I bet you show up to a flight over four hours before departure (my record was nine and I loved every second feeling like Tom Hanks in The Terminal).

So as a gift to say thank you for doing the literary equivalent of getting to Heathrow with bags of time for your trip to Egypt (and Iran and Saudi Arabia), I am gifting you a subscription to my weekly newsletter, which if I continue this rather flimsy metaphor is kind of like getting issued your Boarding Pass to Daughters of the Nile.Now you can relax and give yourself permission to have a glass of rose, some dough balls and a Fiorentina at Pizza Express even though it’s seven o’clock in the morning.   

In my newsletter, Zahra Barri: Daughter of the Nile I write about everything from my life as a Stand Up Comedian to how to leave a whataspp group without anyone realising. I also answer some of life’s probing questions such as the most effective way to ask your parents for money and delve into basic bitch Alain de Botton type philosophical pontifications after experiencing many near death experiences such as an epileptic fit up Machu Pichu and failing my driving test thirteen times. I also discuss my encyclopaedic knowledge of Selling Sunset, my love/hate relationship with social media, Muslim and Western feminisms, Susan Sontag’s essay on ageing and Cardi B’s equally empowering WAP lyrics, toxic femininity and female friendships, the cultural significance of Dr Brene Brown-and why the patriarchy belittles her ‘live, laugh, love’ demographic when she’s actually an academic, people who make conversations in saunas and how to get the morning after pill in Saudi Arabia.

I pledge that all my newsletters will be a mix of comedy and culture, like my latest one on the cosmetics industry, entitled, Beauty, Like Comedy is all about Timing or the piece I wrote about the implications for a woman when you write about sex and comedy.

Come join me at the boarding gate of Daughters of the Nile and subscribe to Zahra Barri: Daughter of the Nile!  

https://substack.com/@zahrabarri

Shukran very much, Zahra x