Tanya Mosley

Her new memoir, Finding My Way, reveals the person beyond the symbol.

It's the story of a young Malala learning the bounds of what it means to be a free woman, trying on jeans for the first time, falling in love, failing exams, and confronting the trauma of a shooting that for a long time she had no memory of.

Malala Yousafzai won the Nobel Peace Prize in 2014 for her efforts to combat the suppression of children and advocate for their education.

She's written several books, including I Am Malala and We Are Displaced, True Stories of Refugee Lives.

The 2015 documentary He Named Me Malala chronicles her family's activism.

Malala Yousafzai, welcome to Fresh Air.

Thank you.

This memoir, in a way, in many ways, picks up where your first memoir left off.

Just to put ourselves in this place, I mean, such a dichotomy here, and how remarkable this is, because here you are entering college.

I mean, you won the Nobel Prize at 17.

So it's an unbelievable honor that I know you take great pride in.

But it also comes, as you say, with this tremendous responsibility to always live up to all that you had endured and

what you've accomplished, what it represents, did that expectation also feel like a cage in the way?

Like you wanted to come into college almost as an anonymous person.

Was there a particular moment when you realized you're at college, when you realized, wait a minute, I could do whatever I want, you know?

And I just want to note, folks, that you had 24-hour security because during this time period, in the years after you were shot, you received lots of threats against your life.

That's why you had 24-hour security.

In addition, in the same way that many heads of state have security in the United States.

What do you think it was about that that like really set your heart on this independent journey like that?

It's almost like another near death experience.