Malala Yousafzai, a Pakistani teenager as well as an activist for female education, was targeted by the Taliban and shot in the head as she was returning from school on a bus. Having survived, she gives a personal account of her life as ‘a girl in a land where rifles are fired in celebration of a son, while daughters are hidden away behind a curtain…’ (Yousafzai and Lamb 13).

The book, I am Malala, shines light on the major role her father played in shaping who she is today by mentioning the way he treated her equally and the powerful name he gave her. According to research on self-fulfilling prophecy (Jahoda 1954) names can have an effect on self-concept and can indirectly influence how we act. Therefore being ‘named after Malalai of Maiwand, the greatest heroine of Afghanistan’ (Yousafzai and Lamb 14), may have influenced her drive and success as the youngest person to win the Nobel Peace Prize.

Few sources such as The Washington Times state I am Malala falls under the autobiography genre, while most sources such as The Washington Post see it as a memoir. In fact, ‘Amazon.com’ put memoirs and autobiographies in the same category. So, is there a difference between the two? Postcolonial theorists and modern-day writers believe there is a slight distinction between an autobiography and a memoir. An autobiography focuses on the chronology of the writer’s entire life while a memoir covers one specific aspect of the writer’s life, allowing for more detail, thus tends to be more entertaining. Therefore, is I am Malala an autobiography or a memoir?

Chapter 1 focuses on the Taliban and how Malala was shot, ‘By the time we got to the hospital my long hair and Moniba’s lap were full of blood’ (Yousafzai and Lamb 12); however as the book progresses, readers begin to be familiar with the chronology of Malala’s life, ‘When I was born…’ (Yousafzai and Lamb 13). Nevertheless, the whole book revolves around the Taliban, ‘People often said the Taliban might kill my father but not me.’ (Yousafzai and Lamb 162).

‘In contemporary writing, the categorization of memoir often signals autobiographical works…. yoking the author’s standing as a professional writer with the works’ status as an aesthetic object’ (Smith & Watson 4) In other words, memoirs and autobiographies are often used interchangeably. However a majority of sources view I am Malala as a memoir, which is compelling to us as scholar-readers, since we ‘are invited to think about the significance of that choice and the kind of reading it invites’ (Smith & Watson 4). It may be that most viewed it as a memoir because it’s not aimed to just provide a clearer picture of Malala, but to change the way the reader views the world – aimed to provide awareness of the severity of gender inequality in countries like Pakistan.

Work cited:

Yousafzai, Malala & Lamb, Christina (2013). ‘I am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for an Education and Was Shot by the Taliban’ New York, NY : Little, Brown, & Company.

Smith, S & Watson, J (2010). ‘Reading Autobiography: A Guide for Interpreting Life Narratives’. University Of Minnesota Press; 2nd ed. edition

Deluzain, Edward (1996). ‘Names and Behaviour’. Behind the Name. Accessed: September 18 2016 

Taube, Michael (2014). ‘Book Review: I am Malala’. The Washington Times. Accessed: September 18 2016

Arana, Marie (2013). ‘Book review: I am Malala’. The Washington Post. Accessed: September 18 2016

Amazon (2013). ‘I am Malala’. Accessed: September 18 2016

Klems, Brian (2013). ‘Memoir vs. Autobiography’ The Writer’s Digest. Accessed: September 18 2016