Malala Yousafzai's Love Story: From Long Distance Courtship, Meeting the Parents, and Getting Married

The youngest Nobel Prize winner shares intimate details about her love life and other information about herself in her new memoir.

Almost four years after marrying husband Asser Malik, the female education activist finally shared more details about their romance and how it led them to walk down the aisle.

The 28-year-old Pakistani activist and the youngest Nobel Prize recipient in history talked about her personal life in her new memoir, 'Finding My Way', out on 21 October.

Early Dating Stage

In an excerpt posted by People, Yousafzai recalled how she and Malik struggled when they started dating.

'Asser's arrival vanquished the dark clouds that hung over the prospect of my third term at Oxford, but it wasn't exactly the carefree summer romance of rom-coms, as I worried a lot about getting caught,' the activist wrote.

She mentioned an instance when she grabbed Malik's hand and pulled him closer while they were walking, but she noticed a woman nearby. The woman drew out her phone and asked to have her photo taken.

'She broke into a wide smile of recognition and pulled out her phone to take a picture. I ran behind a hedge to hide, alarming both Asser and my security team,' Yousafzai added.

Telling the Parents

When they decided to tell her parents, Yousafzai mentioned that she told her father first since she can always depend on him.

'I like him, Dad. I like him...romantically,' she said. 'I am not ready to have this fight with her yet.'

But her father surprised her by immediately informing her mum, which caused a bit of commotion in the family.

'On the other end of the line, I heard my mom say, 'Absolutely not! Does he even speak Pashto? She must marry a Pashtun man!'

Yousafzai then told Malik about how her meeting with her parents went. 'They anticipated a scandal and said I should stop seeing him. I wasn't going to do that, but I hated the tension my relationship created with my parents,' she shared.

The couple decided to pause their relationship for a while, but it seemed like they could never let go of each other.

Marriage and New Project

Yousafzai and Malik decided to tie the knot in November 2021. Their love for each other and their passion for sports kept their bond stronger.

'He [was working] in cricket, and that was one of the reasons why I was interested in him, because I was like, every cricketer is a hard and handsome guy to meet,' she said in an interview with People.

The couple also founded Recess Capital to invest in women's sports.

'There is this power about women's sports that can bring so many people together from different cultures, and it is such a powerful tool for gender equity as well,' Yousafzai explained about her status with Janno. 'So for me, I was like, we need to prove the business case of women's sports.'