Summary: Chapter 21 (“God, I Entrust Her to You”)

After the shooting, the bus driver rushes Malala and two other injured girls to the hospital. When Ziauddin gets the news of Malala’s shooting, he hurries to her bedside, where he is joined by Madam Maryam, the school principal. An army helicopter takes Malala to the intensive care unit of a military hospital in Peshawar, where they are joined by Malala’s mother, Toor Pekai, and her brother, Atal. When Malala’s brain starts to swell, her father agrees to an operation that helps save her life. As Malala fights for her life, Toor Pekai prays. Many important people gather at the hospital to show their support. Soon, the Taliban take responsibility for the shooting. Two British doctors visit Malala and quickly determine that she is not getting the post-surgery care necessary for her survival. Malala’s father worries he will lose her.

Summary: Chapter 22 (Journey into the Unknown)

Malala’s survival remains in question as she struggles with infection and failing lungs and kidneys. One of the British doctors, Dr. Fiona, decides to stay in Pakistan, despite the risk to her own safety, to care for Malala. For better care, doctors transport Malala to another army hospital that is put on lockdown over worries of a Taliban attack. Malala’s shooting shocks the international community, which condemns the Taliban’s actions. In Pakistan, many people view Malala as a peace leader, while others believe negative conspiracy stories about her. Overseas hospitals offer to treat Malala, and the army debates what to do. 

Finally, Malala is flown on a private jet to a better hospital in Birmingham, England. More negotiations take place about who can go with Malala. While some expected Ziauddin to travel with Malala, he refuses to leave behind the rest of his family members, who do not yet have passports. Dr. Fiona serves as Malala’s temporary guardian as she travels without her family. In the hostel where they are staying, Malala’s family anxiously wait for news about her condition and put their trust in God.

Analysis

The walls close in on Ziauddin in this section of the book as he struggles with the consequences of the terror that has become a part of his family’s reality. A typically confident and practical Ziauddin begins thinking unclearly and acting paranoid after his best friend and now daughter are attacked. Although Malala narrates this account, she was barely conscious for any of these events so she carefully pieces together the events of the day, focusing much of Chapter 21 on her father’s agonizing helplessness after her shooting. Ziauddin feels guilty for always encouraging Malala’s activism even in the face of serious threats because it’s the reason that Malala has been hurt. His regret and fear demonstrate the self-doubt he likely often felt but did not show. Ziauddin’s anxiety is compounded by the fact that he and his daughter are in a military hospital, the same corrupt military that has abandoned citizens in the past. Seeing Malala unconscious in a hospital bed with no one but the military to help her and realizing his choices put her there push Ziauddin into an understandable depth of hopelessness.

As when describing other trying events, Malala relates life-or-death events in a steady, unemotional voice to create a specific response in readers. The tone harkens back to the moments leading up to her shooting in the Prologue, as well as when she described serious threats on her life in the recent past. Malala continues this calm tone while describing the actions of General Kayani, who makes decisions on where and when to move her based on the best political optics. Malala describes his decisions plainly, making it clear, though, that Kayani eventually accepts the United Arab Emirates’ offer of a private jet because this plan presents no political conflicts, not because it is the best choice for Malala’s wellbeing.  She leaves out her own emotions because she doesn’t need to say how evil these actions are. Leaving out personal feelings reinforces the idea that Malala isn’t complaining or even memorializing, but rather she is objectively reporting from the front lines of her mission. By leaving out her own emotions, Malala implies that rather than elicit readers’ sympathy, she wants her autobiography to spur them into action.