Malala Yousafzai published her first book, I Am Malala, 364 days after the Taliban attempted to assassinate her, by shooting her in the head on her schoolbus.
Written with veteran war correspondent Christina Lamb, the book had a defiant tone – it was an inspiring tale of a young Pakistani woman who had stood up to an extremist paramilitary organisation for her right to an education and who was afterwards given sanctuary and a warm welcome in Britain.
The book was aimed at young women of a similar age to the then 15-year-old Yousafzai and while it sensitively explored the many obstacles that women from her region faced in accessing education, its overriding message was that anyone, no matter their age or gender, could make an impact. It was perhaps best encapsulated by the quote Yousafzai is most famed for: “One child, one teacher, one book, one pen can change the world.”
Her latest book, Finding My Way, radically departs from such sentiments as Yousafzai asserts the reality of being thrust into the spotlight at a young age and being most famed for something that was done to her rather than something she did.
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“When I was 15 years old and writing my first book I felt that people had all these titles to define me, yet I was 15 and had no idea who I really was. This book is me reintroducing myself,” Yousafzai says.
She reframes parts of her story, such as her time recovering from her injuries. While she still praises the staff who attended her at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Birmingham, she reveals that, while she was there, people were arriving at her bedside wanting to turn her story into books and films. Representatives from various talent agencies also arrived asking to represent Yousafzai, although she says she “wasn’t sure what talent they thought I possessed”.
One of the biggest revelations from her new book is the fact that since arriving in the UK 13 years ago, Yousafzai has been her family’s breadwinner – not just of her immediate family, who came with her, but also much of her extended family and various family friends back in Pakistan. She details how her family spent much of her teenage years living from paycheck to paycheck despite the relatively large salary that she made through her books and speaking engagements because of the amount of money that her parents were sending home each month.
Yousafzai, who was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize when she was just 17, turned 28 in July. “I still have to look after my family and our loved ones in Pakistan as well,” she says.
In the book she admits to falling behind during her time at Oxford University because of how much teaching she was missing due to her work commitments.
“I was doing really badly in my assignments, and I nearly failed my first exams.”
She recounts a tense scene where a tutor at university told her she had to stop going on work trips abroad during term time as she needed to concentrate on her studies. While Yousafzai understood where her tutor was coming from, she worried about how she would still be able to make enough money for her family, whom she supported largely through speaking engagements and books, which required book tours and promotion.
[ From the archive: Taliban ‘regret’ over Malala attackOpens in new window ]
In Finding My Way Yousafzai writes about the deep sense of shame she felt being an advocate for women’s education worldwide and yet being unable to keep on top of her own studies. However, she felt that whenever she tried to bring the subject up with those around her she struggled to get across how detrimental an effect it was having.
“[My] senior tutor wrote a letter to everybody – my parents, the Malala Fund team and my speaking-events organisers – and told them that when Malala is in college she’s actually a full-time student. It does not mean she has all the time in the world to do everything,” she says.
Another major aspect of the book focuses on Yousafzai’s increasing sense of her own inadequacy and powerlessness in the fight for women’s rights.
[ Pakistan sentences 10 to life terms over shooting of Malala YousafzaiOpens in new window ]
She reveals that in the years after the attack on her she believed that, “the support I received meant that everybody was now committed to protecting girls’ rights everywhere, that if a girl was ever stopped from going to school, people would stand up and protect their right to learn.
“What is happening in Afghanistan right now is showing us that there is actually very little protection for women’s rights. A group like the Taliban with misogynist, oppressive policies can take over in any country and they can systematically oppress women. There is hardly any mechanism where women can be protected, where there’s accountability”.
When the attack happened, I felt like I was just a new person suddenly. I felt like I had just left a whole life behind me
— Malala Yousafzai
Her anger at how women in Afghanistan were abandoned by the international community is palpable as we talk. In her book she rails against the hypocrisy of world leaders who she argues exploited the plight of girls in Afghanistan when they needed good PR for their “proxy wars” and then disregarded them when the cost of remaining in the country was too high.
In the book, Yousafzai also reveals that she helped more than 260 people who worked for her charity, the Malala Fund, to leave Afghanistan as the Taliban swept back to power in 2022. She pointedly recalls how, when she reached out to many of the world leaders with whom she had met and previously worked, it was only female leaders who responded to her call for help.
Yousafzai singles out former US secretary of state Hillary Clinton and then Norwegian prime minister Erna Solberg as being particularly helpful, as well as Qatar’s foreign ministry, which let some employees of the Malala Fund and their families enter that country without passports and provided housing until they had sorted out their relocation plans.
The woman I interview seems more sceptical than the younger Yousafzai, yet she is still committed to doing whatever she can to help women around the world access education.
In her new memoir she reveals that on social media she will never skip past a video of women in Afghanistan being mistreated or abused, as she believes it is her duty to be a witness to their bravery and suffering.
“We might feel helpless but even by listening to their words, watching their stories and sharing them with others we are at least making sure that their voices are heard, that they’re seen, that they did not feel that they’re alone and that other people are finding ways to say that they stand with them. All this matters and it means the world to Afghan women and girls when people are showing their support to them.”
But although Yousafzai is more explicitly political in this book, she is also more honest about her personal life. She writes, for example, about how using cannabis for the first time at Oxford University led to her remembering the events of her shooting, something she could not recall until then. Thereafter she started to experience regular panic attacks, insomnia and brain fog, and to become paranoid about people she loved dying.
She writes of her confusion and shame about what was happening to her: “When you search my name you see the word brave over and over again ... being afraid made me feel like I’d lost an essential part of myself.”
She recounts that, growing up, “people didn’t speak about their mental health – I hadn’t heard the word or concept before we came to England. In Pakistan psychological concerns are often ignored or seen as a curse from God.”
Today Yousafzai is a big advocate of breaking down stigma around mental health issues, telling me she sees the issue “very differently than I used to”.
“I loved all the nurses and doctors at the hospital where I received my treatment, except the therapist, the most annoying one asking me questions about how I feel and what my emotions [were] and all of that. But once I started therapy, I realised that it was life changing.”
The Irish people are so kind, hospitable and the nicest you can ever find
— Malala Yousafzai
Attending university was a big turning point. Before starting at Oxford she had a set view of what the rest of her life would look like; she envisioned a solitary existence for herself with all her time being devoted to advocating for the education of women and girls worldwide.
This notion was in part influenced by how difficult Yousafzai had found integrating into the all-girls school in Birmingham that she attended after leaving hospital.
“I struggled to make friends. I was in this new culture and there were already these friend groups and it’s really hard to make a friend in school when you enter late. Outside of school I was with my parents or doing events or serious meetings and I had little exposure to people my age or time where I could be myself and be with my friends.”
In the years after the attack on her, as she travelled around the world campaigning, Yousafzai felt she had lost a part of herself. She writes that in the aftermath of the shooting, “people began to describe someone I didn’t recognise – a serious and shy girl, a wallflower forced to speak out when the Taliban took away her books. They made me into a mythical heroine, virtuous and dutiful, predestined for greatness. Sometimes the absurdity of it made me laugh. Growing up in Mingora, I was a troublemaker”.
Reflecting on her time in university, she credits the friends she made there with helping her to reconnect with the person she was before the shooting.
“It’s very difficult to explain because it’s also internal so you cannot really describe it to someone else but when the attack happened, I felt like I was just a new person suddenly. I felt like I had just left a whole life behind me and that I could never be the old Malala again.”
A quick glance through her various social media accounts reveals a Yousafzai who is not afraid to poke fun at her serious persona and in person she is assured, self-deprecating, earnest and surprisingly funny, quick to point out the ridiculous nature of various situations. Yousafzai is using the publication of this memoir to both reintroduce herself as an adult and to humanise herself, removing herself from the image of the young pious martyr she feels she was made out to be.
She visited Ireland for the first time shortly before our interview; With her husband Asser Mallik and a few friends. she spent a weekend in Dublin. Mallik got to see Oasis at Croke Park.
“The Irish people are so kind, hospitable and the nicest you can ever find. I visited the Trinity Library, and it was a stunning experience just to see these very old books.”
Arezo Rahimi: Fighting for the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan
My Way by Malala Yousafzai is published by Weidenfeld & Nicolson. Malala will be at the 3Olympia, Dublin on November 25th
