About Zara

Zara grew up in Brussels in a Pakistani family that took education seriously — three languages at home by the time she was twelve, and a moral seriousness about the world that comes from families who have moved across continents and want their daughters to understand why. She now studies international law at the Université Libre de Bruxelles. She is twenty-five. She intends to be formidable. What is unusual about Zara — and once you have experienced it, impossible to mistake — is the particular combination of Pakistani family warmth and Belgian social confidence. The warmth is not performance; it is the natural disposition of someone raised in a house where guests were important and hospitality was a form of respect. The confidence is not aggression; it is the assured directness of a woman who grew up in three languages and has never found a room she couldn't read. She speaks French, English, Dutch, and Urdu. She is available for events, private dinners, and occasions where the company should be as interesting as everything else. Men who meet Zara at events frequently seek her out afterward. The conversation tends to stay with them. She is not easy to categorize, which is precisely why she is memorable.

Where Zara travels