There will be a book in which Malala tells her own story published in the fall.

The memoir of 15-year-old Pakistani student Malala Yousafzai will be published this fall, publisher Weidenfeld & Nicolson announced Wednesday. The deal is reportedly worth about $3 million.

Titled “I Am Malala,” the book will tell the story of the young advocate for women’s education who was shot in the face at point-blank range by Taliban gunmen on Oct. 9 in Pakistan’s Swat Valley.

I’m assuming she has a co-author or ghost writer or some such, because that’s a very short time for publishing and she’s in school and has only just recovered from being shot in the head and is only 15 anyway. “Memoir” seems like the wrong word for that – but I don’t know, maybe it’s not. Anyway it doesn’t matter; it’s good that there will be such a book. [Read more…]

Malala yesterday saying why she’s pleased to be going back to school.

It makes me happy to watch it because she looks so all there, so alert and engaged and eager and ready to go. She looks so fundamentally undamaged. Suck it, Taliban.

Now for a piece of really good news. Malala will be staying in the UK – and thus will be much much less likely to be a target again. She is able to stay because her father has been made a diplomat. Good move. Full marks to whoever did it, even if it’s Tories.

The Taliban have vowed to target her again. Her father, Ziauddin, has been appointed Pakistan’s education attaché in Birmingham, virtually guaranteeing that Ms. Yousafzai will remain in Britain. Her case has generated worldwide recognition of the struggle for women’s rights in Pakistan. In a sign of her reach, Ms. Yousafzai made the shortlist for Time magazine’s Person of the Year for 2012.

It’s terrible that she’s been driven out of Pakistan, of course. It’s terrible that the girls of Pakistan are put at a distance from her. But it’s worth it.

A doctor tells us about Malala’s progress in a video.

She’s communicating freely, though she can’t talk until the tracheostomy tube is removed, probably in a few days.

She thanks everybody for the messages.

 

It appears that she is stable.

On Friday, an international team of neurological specialists said her condition  was stable, but they’re watching her closely…

Tests on Malala went well, doctors said Friday, and her care at a hospital  where she was initially treated was good. She remains in critical condition, but  specialists are satisfied with the situation.

“The next 36 to 48 hours are important,” Major Gen. Asim Bajwa told reporters  in Rawalpindi.

People keep telling us to pray, which is understandable but still annoying. However I do spend some time saying “don’t die don’t die don’t die don’t die” at intervals. Might as well.

Kamila Shamsie had a great piece on Malala in the Guardian yesterday.

Today, as Malala Yousafzai remains critical but stable in hospital following an assassination attempt by the Taliban, I watched the laughing, wise, determined 11-year-old in that video and thought of the Urdu phrase, “kis mitti kay banee ho” – “from what clay were you fashioned?” [Read more…]