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Summary: Epilogue (One Child, One Teacher, One Book, One Pen . . .)
Malala’s family move to a house in Birmingham, which feels like a luxury jail far from their belongings, family, friends, and way of life. Toor Pekai suffers from loneliness, and Ziauddin no longer has his school or the status and respect he achieved back home. He knows people hold him responsible for what happened to Malala. Back in school, Malala feels happy to resume her education, but would rather be treated as a regular teenager than a famous activist. Malala’s home fills with awards for her activism, but she focuses on all the work ahead. She wants to be remembered as someone who fought for education, not as the girl who was shot by the Taliban.
When she turns sixteen, Malala speaks in front of the United Nations, advocating for the power of education. Meanwhile, the situation in Pakistan grows worse as more schools are blown up and more students are injured and killed. A letter from a Taliban commander informs Malala that she was shot not for her education advocacy but because she didn’t support the Islamic system. Malala moves forward with her life and holds on to her dream for peace and universal education.
Analysis
While Malala and her family are safe and prosperous in England by the time of the Epilogue, the tone suggests that she is not finished fighting for the freedom of the Pakistani people. While there is much to love about England, most of all the safety and robust educational opportunities, Malala and her family still long for the peaceful familiarity of pre-Taliban Swat Valley and lament what happened to their beloved homeland. The Epilogue leaves the Yousafzai family feeling displaced in their new home where Toor Pekai struggles to make friends and Ziauddin tells stories of his old school. One big change for Ziauddin is that he is now more well-known as Malala’s father than for his own work, but Ziauddin happily embraces this passing on of the torch to his daughter, suggesting that the Epilogue is not the end of Malala’s story as much it is a transition from her parents’ story of raising her to her coming-of-age as an activist in her own right.
Similar to her parents, Malala struggles to adjust to life in England, reinforcing the idea that the Epilogue is not to be understood as a perfect fairy tale ending. Malala misses her friends and has difficulty making new friends in an organic way because her reputation precedes her. The trauma causes flashbacks, and she bears the scars of her experience across her face. Just as those scars cannot be erased, Malala’s world cannot return to the bliss she remembers from her childhood. Malala intentionally chooses to feel gratitude for the opportunities she receives instead of anger over the past. When she speaks at the United Nations on her sixteenth birthday, she speaks for all Pakistanis. Many people in Pakistan disagree with Malala and her outspoken nature, and she will live with threats hanging over her head for the rest of her life. However, Malala continues to speak out fearlessly about education, women’s rights, and equality in spite of the threats. The positive ending is not that Malala magically fixed everything, but that Malala lives to continue the fight her father started.
