47 Fun Facts About Malala Yousafzai

Which pseudonym, taken from a folktale heroine, did Malala Yousafzai use for her BBC Urdu blog from Taliban-held Swat?

Gul Makai, "cornflower", was the BBC reporter's pick to hide the 11-year-old's identity; she got the diary because no other family in Swat would let a daughter write it.

Malala Yousafzai grew up in which Pakistani city, evacuated in May 2009 as the army moved against the Taliban?

Mingora, the largest city in the Swat Valley, emptied as the army fought the Taliban for it; her family fled and could not go home for almost three months.

Whose shawl did Malala Yousafzai wear for her first public speech since the attack, at the UN on her 16th birthday?

Benazir Bhutto's shawl was on her shoulders at the UN on 12 July 2013, a day the UN called Malala Day; she had long named Pakistan's assassinated prime minister as an inspiration.

After the 9 October 2012 attack, Malala Yousafzai was flown to which English city's Queen Elizabeth Hospital?

Birmingham's Queen Elizabeth Hospital specialises in treating military personnel injured in conflict, and the city became her home: she finished school there and co-founded the Malala Fund while based there.

Malala Yousafzai's 2014 Nobel co-laureate, Kailash Satyarthi of India, is best known for campaigning against what?

Child labour is the target of Kailash Satyarthi's Save the Childhood Movement, which has freed tens of thousands of children from slavery and forced work; his GoodWeave label certifies carpets made without it.

Which British journalist co-wrote Malala Yousafzai's memoir I Am Malala, published a year after the attack on her?

Christina Lamb, a Sunday Times correspondent whom Pakistan had deported in 2001 over her reporting, co-wrote the book, published on the eve of the attack's first anniversary.

Which kind of celestial object, catalogued as number 316201, was named after Malala Yousafzai in 2015?

An asteroid, 316201 Malala, circles the Sun between Mars and Jupiter; Amy Mainzer, the NASA astronomer who found it in 2010, used her naming rights to honour her.

The audiobook of the young readers' edition of I Am Malala won a 2015 Grammy Award in which category?

Best Children's Album went to the young readers' edition read by Neela Vaswani, so the trophy was the narrator's, not the author's; Vaswani said she had no idea a children's book could even be nominated.

On her 18th birthday Malala Yousafzai opened a school for Syrian refugee girls in which of Syria's neighbours?

Lebanon's school, near the Syrian border, teaches girls aged 14 to 18 and is funded by her charity; at its opening she urged world leaders to invest in "books, not bullets".

An 11-year-old Malala Yousafzai gave her first speech on education rights at which city's press club?

Peshawar's press club heard her ask "How dare the Taliban take away my basic right to education?", a line that newspapers and TV channels across the region picked up in September 2008.

Which newspaper's reporter Adam B. Ellick made the 2009 documentary Class Dismissed about Malala Yousafzai?

The New York Times had Ellick film her family through the last days before the Taliban's ban closed her school in January 2009, then make a second film, A Schoolgirl's Odyssey.

Which body awarded Malala Yousafzai its 2013 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, a year before her Nobel?

European Parliament leaders gave her the Sakharov Prize from a shortlist that also held the fugitive US whistleblower Edward Snowden and three jailed Belarusian dissidents.

Which archbishop nominated the 14-year-old Malala Yousafzai for the International Children's Peace Prize in 2011?

Desmond Tutu announced her as one of five nominees for the Dutch children's prize in 2011; a South African teenager won that year, but she took it outright in 2013.

In 2017 Malala Yousafzai became the youngest person to address the parliament of which country, which made her an honorary citizen?

Canada first planned the ceremony for October 2014, but she had reached Toronto airport when a gunman's attack on Parliament Hill forced a postponement; she became its sixth honorary citizen.

Which Oxford degree did Malala Yousafzai complete in June 2020?

Philosophy, Politics and Economics, the course of prime ministers from Harold Wilson to David Cameron, was hers at Lady Margaret Hall; after her last exam she said her plans were "Netflix, reading and sleep".

Which climate activist travelled to Oxford University to meet Malala Yousafzai while she was a student there?

Greta Thunberg tweeted "today I met my role model" after the visit to her college, and her host answered that the Swede was "the only friend I'd skip school for".

Malala Yousafzai signed a multiyear 2021 deal to produce dramas, comedies and children's series for which streamer?

Apple TV+ announced the deal on International Women's Day 2021, with the shows to come from Extracurricular, the production company she set up for it.

Malala Yousafzai's 2017 picture book, illustrated by Kerascoët, takes its title from which magic object?

A pencil that makes drawings real is what the young narrator of Malala's Magic Pencil wishes for, an idea borrowed from Shaka Laka Boom Boom, an Indian TV show she watched as a child.

Besides Urdu and English, Malala Yousafzai is fluent in which language, the tongue of her Yusufzai tribe?

Pashto is the language of the Pashtuns, and her family belongs to the Yusufzai tribe that gives her its surname; she was educated mostly by her father, a poet who ran a chain of private schools.

Which British ex-prime minister, as UN education envoy, launched the 'I am Malala' petition after the 2012 attack?

Gordon Brown launched the petition six days after the shooting, calling on Pakistan to give every girl a school place and on the world to get all children into class by the end of 2015.

On which late-night host's show did the 16-year-old Malala Yousafzai promote her memoir I Am Malala in October 2013?

Jon Stewart heard the 16-year-old explain on The Daily Show why she would not even hit a Taliban gunman with her shoe: "then there would be no difference between you and the Talib."

Malala Yousafzai is named after Malalai of Maiwand, said to have rallied Afghan fighters against the army of which empire in 1880?

The British Empire's troops lost the Battle of Maiwand in the Second Anglo-Afghan War; Afghan legend says the teenage Malalai rallied her wavering countrymen to the victory.

In 2014 Malala Yousafzai received an Award for Moral Courage named after which Holocaust-era figure?

Anne Frank's name was on the award, given by the Anne Frank Trust UK; months earlier a leading US newspaper critic had written that only Frank's diary rivalled I Am Malala as a moving chronicle of war.

A 2013 painting of Malala Yousafzai by Jonathan Yeo was displayed at which London institution?

National Portrait Gallery visitors saw her painted doing homework, the everyday act that nearly cost her life; Yeo later auctioned the canvas for $102,500 to benefit her fund.

In 2017 Malala Yousafzai became the youngest person ever appointed to which honorary United Nations role?

Messenger of Peace is the highest honour a UN secretary-general can give a private citizen; the one who gave it to her at 19 called her a symbol of "perhaps the most important thing in the world, education for all".

The Malala Fund, which Malala Yousafzai co-founded with her father in 2013, is headquartered in which city?

Washington is home to the fund, a US-registered charity that pays for the work of local education campaigners in countries such as Pakistan, Nigeria and Brazil.

When Ebola shut schools for months, the Malala Fund paid for radios so 1,200 girls could keep learning in which country?

Sierra Leone moved its lessons onto the radio when Ebola shut its schools in 2014; the fund paid for sets for 1,200 of the poorest girls and for small study groups with mentors.

Which Pakistani body announced a ban on I Am Malala across its 152,000 members, saying it disrespected Islam?

Private Schools Federation members across Pakistan were told the memoir could have a "negative" influence, even as it won awards abroad and a 2014 children's edition followed.

The 2014 children's edition of I Am Malala completes its subtitle 'How One Girl Stood Up for Education and...' how?

Changed the World took the place of the adult subtitle's blunter ending, "and Was Shot by the Taliban", in the edition written for younger readers.

For its mountain scenery, Malala Yousafzai's home valley of Swat was long nicknamed after which European country?

Switzerland lent Swat its nickname, and Queen Elizabeth II praised the valley on a 1961 visit; honeymooners and skiers kept coming until the Taliban took it over in 2007.

The 2015 film He Named Me Malala was shortlisted for an Academy Award in which category?

Best Documentary Feature was the category, though the film missed the final five; a Hindi-language biopic of her followed five years later.

Promoting the 2015 film about her life, Malala Yousafzai performed card tricks on which host's Late Show?

Stephen Colbert watched her shuffle a deck and tell him the trick was mind-reading, pretend to pick the wrong card, then reveal she had known his card all along.

Malala Yousafzai is shown as the girlfriend of the title character's son at the end of which comedy sequel?

Zoolander 2 plants the joke early, with Derek Zoolander Jr. seen reading her books, then ends the 2016 film by pairing the teenage model with the Nobel laureate.

Which coming-of-age comedy has its two leads use 'Malala' as a code word meaning do this, no questions asked?

Booksmart's Amy and Molly, played by Kaitlyn Dever and Beanie Feldstein, call a "Malala" to demand unconditional backing; the real one later watched the 2019 film and approved of the joke.

Malala Yousafzai made her acting debut in a 2024 episode of which Channel 4 sitcom, titled 'Malala Made Me Do It'?

We Are Lady Parts wrote a country song about her for its second season, and she appears in its fantasy sequence on a fake horse, wearing a bejewelled cowboy hat.

Malala Yousafzai's husband Asser Malik, whom she married in 2021, was then a manager at Pakistan's governing board for which sport?

Cricket was his field: Asser Malik was general manager of high performance at the Pakistan Cricket Board when the couple held a small nikah ceremony at home with their families.

Malala Yousafzai's second memoir, published in October 2025 some twelve years after her first, is titled what?

Finding My Way swaps the fearless icon for a student who nearly fails her Oxford exams, gets ghosted and meets the man she will marry.

Malala Yousafzai was travelling home in what kind of vehicle when a Taliban gunman shot her in October 2012?

A school bus was taking her home after an exam when a gunman stopped it and asked "Who is Malala?"; two classmates wounded beside her, Shazia and Kainat, later joined her in Britain.

Which UN Secretary-General called Malala Yousafzai 'our hero' when she spoke at the UN in July 2013?

Ban Ki-moon was handed her petition, signed by millions, for the 57 million children out of school, at a youth assembly that gave the 16-year-old several standing ovations.

The Nobel committee called it important that Malala Yousafzai, a Muslim, shared the 2014 prize with a laureate of which faith?

Hinduism and Islam, India and Pakistan: the committee said the two laureates "join in a common struggle for education and against extremism", invoking Alfred Nobel's own call for fraternity between nations.

In the Oval Office in 2013, the 16-year-old Malala Yousafzai told Barack Obama that what was fuelling terrorism?

Drone strikes kill innocent people and stir resentment in Pakistan, she told the president, asking him to put the effort into education instead; she made the exchange public in her own statement.

As a child in Swat, Malala Yousafzai said she wanted to become what, before her father encouraged politics instead?

A doctor was her dream at 11, when she told a film crew her father wanted a politician "but I don't like politics"; by 16 she was saying she wanted to be Pakistan's prime minister.

Which university gave the 16-year-old Malala Yousafzai its Peter Gomes Humanitarian Award in September 2013?

Harvard named her its Humanitarian of the Year to standing ovations at Sanders Theatre; outside, she told reporters she hoped to go home and build a university like it in Pakistan.

Which Scottish university awarded the 16-year-old Malala Yousafzai an honorary Master of Arts degree in 2013?

Edinburgh's honorary master's came at a gathering where she was reunited with Shazia Ramzan and Kainat Riaz, the two classmates wounded with her, for the first time since the attack.

Malala Yousafzai's first name, taken from an Afghan folk heroine, means what in her native language?

Grief-stricken is what Malala means, and she knew it at 11: her BBC diary says she liked her cheerful pen name better, and that her mother wanted to make the switch permanent.

Malala Yousafzai's father Ziauddin, a poet and education activist, ran a chain of private schools under what name?

Khushal Public School was founded and run by her father; its girls' classes were among those the Taliban ordered shut in January 2009, the closure her BBC diary counted down to.

Which pop star performed with 'Malala' written across her back at a Los Angeles concert a day after the 2012 attack?

Madonna bared the stencilled name during a striptease routine, then dedicated "Human Nature" to her: "This song is for you, Malala."