Nobel Peace Prize laureate Malala Yousafzai is reflecting on her personal growth in her new memoir Finding My Way.
In a new interview, the 28-year-old education activist has spoken about her parents' reservations about the book’s openness as it touches upon her life in Birmingham since surviving an assassination when she was 15.
“I knew that my parents would have a lot of opinions on what I shared — maybe my mom, because she might be mad at me for opening up a bit,” she said. “But the most important thing for me is that it truly reflects how I feel and what my thoughts are.”
The memoir largely explores her experience at Oxford University, where she sought normalcy while continuing her advocacy for girls’ education, and the toll of living with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Yousafzai also writes about her relationship with her husband, Asser Malik, whom she married in 2021. She says the book marks a shift in how she wishes to be seen—less as a global symbol and more as a woman learning to define her own life.
In one section, she revisited the controversy over her 2021 British Vogue interview, when comments questioning the necessity of marriage sparked outrage in Pakistan as well as in her family.
She justifies that she had been privately dating Malik and felt conflicted answering the question, but ended up being misunderstood as anti-marriage.
She shares stories of her secret relationship with Malik, including one dinner date where she swapped shalwar kameez for a pink dress mid-evening and heels or when she hid behind a hedge to avoid being photographed while holding Malik’s hand.
Elsewhere, Yousafzai recalls being criticised for wearing jeans at Oxford and how even small choices invited scrutiny.
The book also documents her recent return to Shangla, her family’s hometown in Pakistan, where she helped open a girls’ school offering mental health support. “The work that I do for girls’ education,” she told People Magazine, “is what matters to me the most.”