Just because she won a Nobel doesn't mean Malala didn't break some rules in college

TONYA MOSLEY, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. I'm Tonya Mosley. College is often a time to figure out who we are, to fall in love for the first time, to experiment, to fail, to question what we believe. But for Malala Yousafzai, it was different. She spent her college years experiencing all of these things under scrutiny and 24-hour security. When she was 15, Malala survived an assassination attempt by the Taliban - a gunshot to the head while riding home on a school bus. But long before that, she'd been standing up to them, demanding the right for girls to go to school in her hometown of Mingora in Pakistan's Swat Valley. The Taliban had taken control, closing schools, banning women from public life and brutally punishing anyone who resisted.

MOSLEY: After the shooting, Malala's life changed overnight. She became a symbol of resistance, praised, politicized and picked apart. While the world saw an unshakable young woman with a message, Malala was also a teenager undergoing surgeries to reconstruct what was destroyed by the Taliban, experiencing post-traumatic stress and navigating others' expectations of who she should be.

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.

MALALA YOUSAFZAI: Thank you.

MOSLEY: This memoir, in a way - in many ways, picks up where your first memoir left off. Just to, like, put ourselves in this place - I mean, such a dichotomy here because - in 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 a way? Like, you wanted to come into college almost as an anonymous person.

YOUSAFZAI: Going to Oxford was my childhood dream, and I wanted to be myself, make as many friends. But I think with these titles and recognitions like the Nobel Peace Prize, I thought I had to act differently. And because, you know, a lot of the people who receive these titles are much older in their life, and they - you know, they're usually in their 50s, 60s. They have, you know, like, a family life already established. I received the Nobel Peace Prize when I was in my chemistry class.

(LAUGHTER)

YOUSAFZAI: So, you know, I was still a school student. So I see it as a big responsibility, and I always have felt that now I need to live up to the expectation. You know, it was given for the work I had done, but it was also given for the work that is ahead of us. So for me now, like, I have to work for the rest of my life to prove that it was well deserved. And for me, that is just, you know, seeing this dream of girls' education becoming a reality in every part of the world. But at the same time, I thought, OK, like, but do you have to change as a person? Like, are you supposed to live a certain way?

In college, though, this was the first time that I allowed myself to be more of myself, to really just test it. And to be honest, I didn't even know who I was. Am I funny? Am I not? What do I enjoy? Like, I didn't know any of that. I have never seen boys my age. I have never, you know, been away from my parents or lived on my own. I can decide. I can go to a Diwali party. I can stay up late to 3 a.m., and, you know, like, my parents would not know about this. And, you know, I could sign up for rowing, or I could go to the aerobics '80s-themed party, any of that. We could do all of that. I was somehow feeling that I was reliving all the missed years of my childhood because of the activism that I had to take from such a young age that I missed.

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

YOUSAFZAI: (Laughter) You know, I think about the roof climbing experience oftentime (ph) because that was offered to me by a stranger at college, who told me that there is this crazy thing that only cool college students do. And he offered it to me, and I said, OK, I'll see you at midnight. I told my security, like, I'm done for the day, and you guys can go to sleep. So the security were like...

MOSLEY: And I just want to note...

YOUSAFZAI: Yes.

MOSLEY: ...For folks that you had 24-hour security because...

YOUSAFZAI: Yes.

MOSLEY: ...During this time period, in the years after you were shot, you received lots of threats against your life. That's why...

YOUSAFZAI: Yes.

MOSLEY: ...You had 24-hour security - in addition, in the same way that many heads of state have security in the United States.

YOUSAFZAI: Yeah. I mean, it was awkward to have, like, guys following you. But at the same time, it just helped me have the opportunity to experience these things and not be worried about safety and security. So, yeah - but for that night, the roof climbing night, I told them, I think I'm going to be safe on my own. I said, you guys can go to bed.

So it's midnight. I follow the stranger. We go up to the fourth floor of the building, and there's a small window in this room. And he tells me that we need to sneak out through the window and then walk by this narrow path on the roof. One misstep and you could fall. And I am just nodding, and I follow him, and it was a really scary way making up - making it up to the rooftop. And on the rooftop, there's this bell tower, like, the clock tower. And that moment just felt surreal. I just thought I had, like, conquered something. I was breathing in the fresh air, and I was looking down, just seeing some students still up at night or the light was still on in some rooms. And I was thinking maybe they are still trying to finish their essay or just feeling a moment of victory. And I was so scared that I might be, like, kicked out of college for this and this happening so soon. So I was terrified that - being an advocate for education and then getting in trouble and being kicked out.

MOSLEY: 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.

YOUSAFZAI: I think for me, it was just wanting to disobey rules. I thought I had to live up to expectations and be a certain way. I could never get in trouble. I thought if this is something that puts me in the cool kids category or the rebellious kids category, I want to give it a try. Like, I wanted these college years to be that experience that I otherwise would never come across.

MOSLEY: You really did experience a lot of things in college that many students do, including getting high. You - your spring year of college, first year at Oxford, you're with friends. You're hanging out, as college kids do, and you're offered marijuana, specifically a bong. And you join in with your friends, and as the hours tick on, you have a reaction. You can't walk. Everything goes black. And this, you realize, is a very familiar place. Could I have you read what you wrote about it in the book?

YOUSAFZAI: (Reading) Suddenly, I was 15 years old again, lying on my back under a white sheet, a tube running down my throat, eyes closed.

YOUSAFZAI: For seven days, as doctors tended to my wounds, I was in a coma. From the outside, I looked to be in a deep sleep. But inside, my mind was awake, and it played a slideshow of recent events - my school bus. A man with a gun. Blood everywhere. My body carried through crowded streets. Strangers hunched over me, yelling things I didn't understand. My father rushing toward the stretcher to take my hand.

As the images repeated in the same sequence over and over, I raged against them, trying to beat them away. This isn't true, I told myself. The real Malala is the one trapped in this nightmare, not the girl on the stretcher. Just wake up, and it will stop. Wake up. I had tried to force my eyes open, to see something other than this carousel of horrors. Inside, I screamed. Outside, my lips stayed closed, motionless. I was awake and buried alive in the coffin of my body.

MOSLEY: It's hard to read.

YOUSAFZAI: Yes.

MOSLEY: It's hard to read it. Yeah.

YOUSAFZAI: The bong incident, you know, just turned out to be an experience not that I had imagined. I had heard cool things about it. And of course, you know, like, it's different for everybody. But I think in my case, there was this unaddressed trauma. The memory, the visuals - everything, I think, had been there. My brain had tried to suppress them because, you know, it's just a moment of fear that you do not want to see again. And when the bong incident happened, my body froze, and I was reliving the Taliban attack. I - you know, I could see the gunman. I thought, this is happening all over again.

I often, you know, say that I received my surgeries, and I recovered so quickly from the Taliban attack. But just when this happened, I realized that maybe I actually had not fully recovered. There was this unaddressed part of my recovery, which was mental health, which was the trauma that we did not actually count in the treatment process.

MOSLEY: Let's take a short break. If you're just joining us, my guest is Malala Yousafzai. She's the youngest-ever Nobel Peace Prize Laureate and co-founder of Malala Fund, which advocates for girls' education worldwide. Her new memoir is "Finding My Way." We'll continue our conversation after a short break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF THE MOUNTAIN GOATS SONG, "PEACOCKS")

MOSLEY: This is FRESH AIR. And today, I'm talking to Malala Yousafzai about her new memoir, "Finding My Way," which chronicles her coming-of-age after surviving a Taliban assassination attempt at age 15 and navigating life as a global icon while trying to live as a normal young woman. The book reveals her private struggles with mental health, her complicated relationship with fame and her evolution as an activist. When we left off, we were talking about the experience she had in college after getting high on marijuana.

There are some dark moments that you experienced. After that night, you started to experience these intrusive thoughts that didn't stop, even after the high went away. You described being afraid of a kitchen knife - not that someone would hurt you with it, but that you might hurt yourself. And I just kept thinking as I was reading this, for someone the world has called the bravest girl on Earth, what was it like to suddenly be frightened of your own hands, of your own self?

YOUSAFZAI: It was frightening. And even now, like, when I think about it, it's just - it's a really frightening place to be in. You feel trapped. You do not see a way out. That's exactly what I was going through in those days. I - you know, I would be - I was shaking. I was shaking every minute. I could not look at harmful objects. I could not look at a knife. I could not watch news that said anything about murdering people or - you know, or somebody being killed or shot or wounded.

I just felt so disappointed with myself that somebody who actually faced a Taliban gunman was somehow now scared of these small things. It was all just, like, trivial stuff that - it made no sense to me. And I thought that I had lost my courage, that I was not brave enough - the titles I had received my whole life, and I thought I had to live up to them. I felt like an imposter. And then one of my friends suggested that I see a therapist. She said that a lot of students actually get therapy in college - that she herself is seeing a therapist. And I was a bit skeptical. I also thought a therapist would not understand what I'm going through.

MOSLEY: Right, because your...

YOUSAFZAI: But she said it...

MOSLEY: Yeah.

YOUSAFZAI: ...I should give it a try. Yeah.

MOSLEY: Because your parents didn't believe in therapy. I think your father said only a completely nonfunctioning person needs a therapist. So there was a lot that you needed to get over to actually seek one.

YOUSAFZAI: Yes. You know, growing up in Pakistan, we had not heard about therapy and mental health that now we are hearing, where it's been accepted as a normal conversation. People are opening up about it. It - you know, and we don't even have that much support around mental health.

MOSLEY: Has it helped you?

YOUSAFZAI: Therapy has definitely helped me. I remember the first session, where I told my therapist all my problems - past, you know, present, potential future ones. And I said, OK. Like, now give me some medication. How do we fix it? And she took a deep breath, and she said, you know, this is not how therapy works. And she told me that I had PTSD and anxiety.

And this was, like, the first time that I actually heard the word PTSD. You know, people - I had come - like, I had heard it in a few different contexts. But I thought, you know, OK, I faced a trauma, but I think I don't have PTSD. But seven years later, the PTSD appeared. And, you know, I learned something - that when people - they talk about, like, a traumatic experience, it's not necessary that PTSD or the mental health issues appear immediately. It - like, they could appear seven years later, 10 years later. Like, you never know. And that happened in my case.

MOSLEY: Let's talk about love. You write that you'd convinced yourself you'd never date, you'd never marry, that you'd be like a - quote, "like a nun, but Muslim." Once you got past yourself and you and your now husband, Asser, fell madly in love, which - folks can read all about it in this book. But you were resistant to marriage for a long time. Why were you against marriage?

YOUSAFZAI: I mean, growing up, I had seen many girls lose the opportunity to complete their education and, you know, just their dreams to become a doctor, engineer because they were married off. So like, marriage, that was like the last thing I wanted to think about. I did not want to get married. It was not a cool thing. If you wanted to have a future as a girl, you wanted to keep yourself away from marriage for as long as you could, because even later in your life, it just meant, like, more compromises for women, that, you know, you had to readjust to the husband's family. And you just had to pray that the husband turns out to be a nice, respectful person.

I remember when I was thinking about marriage for myself, I put myself in my mom's shoes for the first time. I had never thought about anything from her perspective before. And, you know, I would always admire my dad. And I wanted to, like, follow his footsteps and all of that. But this was the first time I wondered what life would have been like for my mom. When she decided to marry, how did she trust this guy she had not even known and decided to, like, move into his house and be married off and restart a new life? And I asked my mom, actually, what were her dreams when she was a kid? And she said, you know, I just wanted to find a husband who would be respectful. And I can go into the city and, like, have nice food and, like, drive around in a car.

And I realized that my mom didn't even have a dream for herself, that marriage was a way for her to find some sort of freedom, a little more freedom than she had right now. So it was sort of a fascinating time. When I saw Asser, I immediately fell in love with him. I knew that I wanted to be with him. And I knew that we had to be married because in our culture, for two people to be together, you have to be married. But then marriage just felt like a very heavy topic for me. I even went to read some books.

MOSLEY: Yes. You read a lot of books about feminism and marriage, yeah.

YOUSAFZAI: Yes. I was like, please, Virginia Woolf, help me.

(LAUGHTER)

YOUSAFZAI: bell hooks, can you share a few words of wisdom?

MOSLEY: Well, you made this list of questions for him before...

YOUSAFZAI: Yes.

MOSLEY: ...You marry him. I mean, you asked him about fidelity, about whether he'd control what you wear, whether he'd take another wife. These were real considerations that you had to know. You were trying to extract guarantees, though, and he tried to give them to you, but then he said something to you that was really kind of profound. He said there are no magic words to take away all of your doubts. Why was that the right answer for you to kind of come to the realization that this was the step that you should take.

YOUSAFZAI: Yeah, I mean, like, poor Asser. I was asking him every possible question about every horrible things that I had seen or heard about. Like, you know, a husband doesn't allow his wife to work. A husband has a problem that the wife earns more money. The husband is of this view that he can marry, like, more wives or things like that. And he is, you know, OK with, like, telling the wife off or, like, that she has to live by his rules and all of that. So I said, who knows? Like, I know he's a nice guy, but who knows? I think it's better to get a verbal (laughter) confirmation.

It's just the fear, the fear that we all carry. I knew that I was a very independent person. I did not need a husband, like, literally. I did not need him. But I wanted him. And I wanted to make sure that this was, like, worth my time. But, you know, when he said that, you know, no answers would clear all my doubts, I think he was right. It was true, because even when he was answering, I still had that little hesitation in my heart. But what I really loved was just the way he was answering those questions. He was very patient. He gave me time. You know, this marriage conversation started, like, a while ago. But he allowed me to go and do my research and talk to people and just, like, take my time off.

MOSLEY: My guest today is Malala Yousafzai. We're talking about her new memoir, "Finding My Way." We'll be right back after a short break. I'm Tonya Mosley, and this is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF BRAD MEHLDAU TRIO'S "GREAT DAY")

MOSLEY: This is FRESH AIR. I'm Tonya Mosley. And today, I'm talking with Malala Yousafzai about her new memoir, "Finding My Way." She's the youngest-ever Nobel Peace Prize laureate and co-founder of Malala Fund, which advocates for girls' education worldwide. In her new memoir, Malala writes about her college years at Oxford, her struggles with PTSD and panic attacks and her decision to marry despite her reservations about the institution of marriage.

Malala, I want to talk to you a bit about your parents. Many of us know your father's story. He's an educator who raised you to speak up. Your mother is quieter in the public narrative. And in this book, though, she's complex. She once saved a girl from forced marriage. So she did have that within her, this understanding that whatever power she had, she also was - in a way, would you call her a silent activist, not as vocal and open as your father but still believing nonetheless?

YOUSAFZAI: My mom is more an action-driven person. She, you know, doesn't care about, you know, like, what we say. But she - for her, it's more about the actions we take. My mom has helped so many women and girls. I - you know, some stories, like, I saw myself. I remember this girl in Pakistan, when we were living there, who was raped, and she became pregnant. And my mom saved her life. My mom saved her life. She took her for an abortion.

And I - at the time, I did not understand any of that. But, like, now, when I reflect on it, I think, you know, my mom took such a brave step that it's - you know, if I ask her about her opinions on certain things, like, she may not give us - she - like, she may not give an answer that truly reflects her actions. But I think, you know, she - for her, it is about the safety and the protection of girls and how - you know, how we can help them and protect them from the harm and the - that they face.

MOSLEY: Both of them, both of your parents, have been fiercely brave. But you also describe them as - what will people think? - people. And I found that to be such an interesting way to describe it. I think a lot of people can connect to that. How do you hold both of those truths about your parents, being fiercely brave but also very concerned with the opinions of others?

YOUSAFZAI: My mom had a very different childhood than mine. She never went to school. Her female friends never went to school. It was actually normal and expected for a girl not to be educated. The best that she dreamed for herself was to be married into a family where the husband is a bit kind and just lets her have her favorite food or just takes her to one of her, like, favorite places to visit. That's all that she hoped for, and that it doesn't turn out to be a horrible, abusive kind of in-laws family or a husband.

And, you know, when I think about it, I'm like, you know, like, my mom's journey was not easy. And she always says that she's so lucky that she found my dad because he is, you know, already known globally for his advocacy, feminism, for standing up for women's rights and, more importantly, for letting his daughter speak. I always tell people that there's nothing unique in my story of activism from Swat Valley. The only thing that's unique or different is that my father did not stop me. If more men are brave enough to allow the girls to do what they want or to not stop them, then we will hear different stories. We will hear more women and girls get the opportunities that they deserve.

I know both of them are very kind and caring parents. But they are not just thinking as parents, but I think they're also thinking as representatives of the bigger community in Pakistan or relatives. And sometimes I feel like there are just too many voices that are speaking when they are speaking. And it affects everything - like, even a decision like what I was packing for college. My mom was packing all the traditional Pakistani clothes for me. I just wanted to wear jeans and gray jumpers or sweaters, and I did not want to stand out at all. So I remember packing all of these, like, more normal college clothes. I remember going on Google and looking up, Selena Gomez casual 2017...

(LAUGHTER)

YOUSAFZAI: Because I was like, you know, what is, like, a cool outfit, a casual outfit that everybody's wearing?

MOSLEY: There's this moment in college when you wore jeans to rowing practice.

YOUSAFZAI: Yes.

MOSLEY: And a picture was taken of you wearing these jeans. Pakistani media went into an uproar. Your father wanted you to issue a clarification. And I'll just say - there's something almost comical in the way that you write about that. What did he say to you? What did he want you to say?

YOUSAFZAI: You know, both my mom and dad were really upset when they saw the whole backlash in Pakistan. I remember, like, on phone with both Mom and my dad and just being so mad at them because I said, like, I am here at college, not for some pilgrimage or some, like, religious ceremony. This is my college life, and I want to be like every other student. What am I even going to say in a clarification statement? Like, apologies - I'm not going to wear jeans tomorrow? Or, OK, let me defend jeans and say, you know, there are, like, Muslim people who wear jeans. There's no fixed dress code for Muslims. Or, you know, like, it's - I was like, this is going to be a whole - another debate. Can women and girls just wear what they want?

So my dad, in the end, agreed. My mom was still arguing with me, but in the end, she sort of accepted it. But I told them - I said, you know, the - you just never know. Jeans was, like, the last thing that I was worried about. To be honest, I was more worried about people taking photos if I were seen, like, with my friends at a party where we were maybe, like, dancing together. I thought, like, all of these things could be taken out of context. I was super aware of that. But when it happened with jeans, I was like, OK. You know what? I'm I'm just going to go for everything now because, like, people could criticize anything. Like, people could even criticize you for your existence. Where do you draw the line?

MOSLEY: Let's take a short break, Malala. If you're just joining us, my guest is Malala Yousafzai. She's the youngest-ever Nobel Peace Prize laureate and co-founder of Malala Fund, which advocates for girls' education worldwide. Her new memoir is "Finding My Way." We'll continue our conversation after a short break. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF METALLICA SONG, "... AND JUSTICE FOR ALL")

MOSLEY: This is FRESH AIR. And today, I'm talking to Malala Yousafzai about her new memoir, "Finding My Way," which chronicles Her coming of age after surviving a Taliban assassination attempt at age 15 and navigating life as a global icon while trying to live as a normal young woman. The book reveals her private struggles with mental health, her complicated relationship with fame and her evolution as an activist.

The only panic attacks you still experience, you wrote in the book, are about Afghanistan. Is that still true?

YOUSAFZAI: Yes. And I remember when I was in South Africa, I was giving a speech at the Nelson Mandela lecture. And I wanted to support the Afghan women's campaign of gender apartheid. So they're calling leaders to recognize what's happening in the country as a gender apartheid because it is actually systemic oppression. And they want it to, like, be considered as an international crime, and the Taliban should be held accountable for it. So I gave my speech. I did my interviews, you know, we had conversation with South African female activists and allies. And everything went really well.

And then on the last night, like in the middle of my sleep, I just suddenly woke up. And I was shaking and sweating. And I had, like, this terrible panic attack where I thought, you know, I could die. I was sort of screaming. And, yeah, it was terrifying. But this time, my husband was with me. And he was holding my hand. And he helped me and supported me. So it was just a reminder that the fear is there. And the fear is for what other Afghan women and girls are experiencing right now. It is terrifying. It is truly terrifying.

MOSLEY: And yet at the same time, when you're scrolling on your phone, you make yourself stop to watch the videos of Afghan women being beaten and assaulted. And so, in many ways, you're choosing to retraumatize yourself. Why is it important to be a witness?

YOUSAFZAI: You know, I have lived through those experiences. I have seen them. And when we were going through the Taliban's brutal time in our hometown in Swat Valley in the north of Pakistan, we wanted the world to see it because this is a reality that women are actually living. These are not things that, you know, sort of have happened in the past and they have stopped. No, like, these terrible things are happening each and every day. Only a few stories actually make it to social media.

So when we see something horrible happening to others, I think even just stopping for a moment and just seeing it, witnessing it so that they know that, you know, that you saw and you were there with them and that you feel anger, you feel the frustration. So I think even when we share emotions, it is a message of solidarity. But, you know, I want Afghan women to know that they're not alone. I think they need more support. And that's the work that I'm supporting through Malala Fund. I'm supporting Afghan activists in the country, outside the country. And I hope that things change for them.

MOSLEY: I want to ask you about the United States. Having observed our political landscape, maybe what has surprised you most about the state of women's rights here in the United States?

YOUSAFZAI: I think women's rights are a very fragile conversation in many parts of the world, including the United States. And in moments like these, I think women and girls and advocates of women's rights should take a moment to reflect on, you know, how much progress we have actually achieved. I know people often ask that, you know, are we shocked to see these setbacks? And I say, yes, I am shocked to see the setbacks everywhere, most importantly in Afghanistan because, like, imagine girls' education being banned. Like, that's a reality girls in Afghanistan have to live under. Or women being banned from work, that's a reality women have to live under.

So it's also a reminder that the activism that we're doing for women's rights is more important than ever because of how fragile these accomplishments have been that they're taken away from us the next moment. So we need to do more to protect women's rights and, like, systematically protect them. So one of the campaigns that Afghan women are leading is to recognize what's happening in Afghanistan as a gender apartheid and to make gender apartheid a part of the crime against humanity treaty.

And I know it sounds like too much, too many jargons. But what this basically means is that, you know, currently, we do not have anything in the international law that can recognize the level of systemic oppression that the Taliban imposed. Like, the scale of it is just so big and so intense that they're, like, getting away with it. So if it becomes an international crime, then countries are obliged to react. Countries should not be normalizing relationships with them. And it just helps us have a better accountability system.

MOSLEY: The challenge is - you know, I think about the United States' role in this. I know the Trump administration's cuts to international aid, and the reinstatement of policies like this expanded global gag rule, it directly impacts women's access to education and health care worldwide. And I was wondering, given your work, have you seen U.S. policy changes impact girls and women in countries where you work?

YOUSAFZAI: Yes. So a lot of the activists that Malala Fund supports also receive grants from USAID. And yes, because of the cuts, their organizations were affected, including one organization in Afghanistan as well. And, you know, for an organization like Malala Fund, so we don't receive government grants. But we knew that these activists, who are working in these important, tough areas of the countries where girls need help with education, need our support more than ever. So we are helping them get, like, fundraising in other ways, and we are also providing them with the funding that they need. So, yes, it's reaching to the work for girls' education. It has affected that.

MOSLEY: There's this thing that this sociologist, Tressie McMillan Cottom, says - that freedom, she feels, is a responsibility. Her belief is that the more responsible she is to others, the freer she is. And I feel like this is what I'm hearing from you in a way. I was wondering, does that idea resonate with you?

YOUSAFZAI: You know, I don't necessarily think about it in the sense of freedom, but I think about it as a purpose of life. I just reflect on the time when I could not be in school. I was only 11 years old, and the Taliban had banned girls from learning. It has been my life's mission since then that no other girl faces that. I remember recovering from the Taliban bullet and processing this moment that somebody could, like, hurt a child. And since then, it has now become my life's goal that no other child takes a bullet. No other child is punishing - no other child is punished for daring to be in school. So when you face violence, harm and trauma yourself, you understand how terrible and horrible it is that you can no longer see it even happening to anybody else.

You know, people often ask me, like, how I felt. I'm like, you know, yes, you know, it was all horrible, but I just cannot see it happening to anyone right now, whether it's girls being banned from school in Afghanistan or girls - schools being bombed in Gaza or children being forced into labor or girls being married off, and, you know, they have to, like, live under these constant wars and violence, all of these things. Like, it's just scary. It's - but I just hope that we can create a world without any war and terror and harm for children, where they can have a childhood of joy and learning, and they can have a safe life.

MOSLEY: Malala Yousafzai, thank you so much.

YOUSAFZAI: Oh, thank you so much. Nice talking to you.

MOSLEY: Malala Yousafzai's new memoir is called "Finding My Way." Coming up, TV critic David Bianculli reviews a new documentary series about Martin Scorsese on Apple TV+. This is FRESH AIR.

(SOUNDBITE OF SAINT SINNA AND CREEBO LODI SONG, "REAL FLOW")

TONYA MOSLEY, HOST:

This is FRESH AIR. A new five-part biographical documentary about Martin Scorsese analyzing the film director's life and work is appearing now on Apple TV+. Directed by Rebecca Miller, it's called "Mr. Scorsese," and our TV critic David Bianculli has this review.

DAVID BIANCULLI, BYLINE: If the thought of a five-part, five-hour study of Martin Scorsese might sound excessive, then maybe you haven't seen enough of his movies or, for that matter, feasted on any of his multipart documentaries on the history of film, both domestic and international. They're treasures loaded with insights, passion and hints about which films to seek out next for even more riches. In Rebecca Miller's new "Mr. Scorsese," he turns that focus and knowledge on his own work, with Miller providing visual aids to underscore his points.

Take, for example, one of Scorsese's most famous films, "Taxi Driver." Robert De Niro plays New York City cab driver Travis Bickle, who's rejected by some elements of the city and repulsed by others. Scorsese explains to Miller how he set out to emphasize Travis' sense of alienation visually by subtly but intentionally selecting how he presented De Niro's character on screen.

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MARTIN SCORSESE: So we always tried to - kind of psychologically tried to keep him separate from everybody else. That was the key thing in that film. Who's in whose frame? And so I was trying always to keep him in a single frame, nobody in his frame. And then when I cut to the other person, he's in their frame, but they're not in his.

BIANCULLI: We're given lots of other insights about "Taxi Driver" and not just from Scorsese. Robert De Niro and Jodie Foster talk about how their improv sessions during rehearsals defined their characters and led to some of the movie's most indelible scenes. The film's screenwriter, Paul Schrader, talks about how both the director and the actors elevated what was written on the pages of his script. And Schrader, when asked by Miller, also talks very chillingly about how the pent-up potentially violent loner of "Taxi Driver" is a much more familiar character today in real life.

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REBECCA MILLER: It feels like there's a lot of Travis Bickles, especially right now.

PAUL SCHRADER: They're all talking to each other on the internet. When I first heard about him, he was talking to nobody. He really was, at that point, the underground man. Now he's the internet (laughter).

BIANCULLI: One of Scorsese's friends and fellow directors, Steven Spielberg, offers some "Taxi Driver" insights, too. He tells how Scorsese avoided an X rating for that movie, which the film board threatened to impose because of its bloody climax, by adjusting the color of the blood on the finished prints from bright red to a much more muted brown. Scorsese learned that lesson well. Later, for his brutal boxing epic "Raging Bull," he drained the color of blood completely, shooting the entire film in black and white.

Most of Scorsese's films are dissected with the same loving detail by those who know him and his movies best. The people interviewed include not only De Niro, Foster, Schrader and Spielberg, but actors Leonardo DiCaprio, Daniel Day-Lewis, Sharon Stone, Joe Pesci, Margot Robbie and Cate Blanchett, directors Spike Lee and Brian De Palma and rock stars Mick Jagger and Robbie Robertson. Then there are his other creative collaborators, such as Thelma Schoonmaker and his grown children, his wife and ex-wives and childhood friends. All of them have some informative and wild stories to tell. Early on, Scorsese sits down with some guys from the old neighborhood, including De Niro, to talk about old times.

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SCORSESE: I'll never forget. One night, we're standing outside, and there was a guy lying in the Jersey Street. Remember?

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Yeah.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Yeah.

SCORSESE: And we start looking. We're talking by the graveyard, and we're going, oh, the guy's not moving.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Remember seeing his hands?

SCORSESE: Yeah. Yeah. I said, guy's not moving. Yeah, he's dressed nicely.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: And - oh, he is.

SCORSESE: You kind of go over, Robert. You were going over, looking around like, huh, really? You came back and said Jimmy just put a pencil in his head.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Yeah.

SCORSESE: To make sure that it was a bullet hole.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: Yeah.

SCORSESE: That was when Mulberry Street was still...

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: The dumping ground.

SCORSESE: ...The place where they dumped the bodies. They called it Murder Mile.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Yeah, yeah.

SCORSESE: It used to be called. And the Bowery was called Devil's Mile.

UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: Yeah.

SCORSESE: So we were in between Murder Mile and Devil's Mile.

BIANCULLI: But even while growing up in that tough neighborhood, young Marty Scorsese found solace in the local movie theater and began drawing his own make-believe stories. Essentially, they were comic strip storyboards for the movies in his mind, violent period epics with titles like "The Eternal City," complete with gladiators and bloody battles and with credits that read, even at age 11, directed and produced by Martin Scorsese.

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SCORSESE: I became obsessed with all kinds of films. And I used my imagination. I was making up all these stories. So I started drawing these little pictures that showed the impression of movement, like the storyboard for a film. These images move. This is a boom, a tracking shot here. Here's the wall of Rome, and here are the trees here. And the camera is on a crane. And the camera comes all the way down over the backs of the first group of men, and the doors open. But it's a big crane shot because you go from here and then it goes behind, and you go down. I'm still doing this shot. I'm still doing it. It doesn't quite work all the time.

BIANCULLI: The documentary "Mr. Scorsese" spends its first installment on his early days, his childhood, making student films at NYU, being on the movie camera crew at Woodstock and eventually getting his break with low-budget movie producer Roger Corman to direct a Bonnie and Clyde knockoff called "Boxcar Bertha." When Scorsese showed it to his filmmaking friends, they were unimpressed. And when he showed it to his mentor and hero, independent filmmaker John Cassavetes, the reaction was even worse.

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SCORSESE: So he looked at "Boxcar Bertha." I saw him afterwards. He looked at me. And he was like 10 feet away from me. And he goes, come here. And I went up to him, and he embraced me. Then he held me aside, pushed me aside. He goes, you just spent a year of your life making a [expletive]. Don't do this again, don't do this again.

BIANCULLI: And he didn't. Instead, Martin Scorsese made "Mean Streets" with Harvey Keitel and Robert De Niro and took all their careers to a higher level. Mr. Scorsese takes us on that journey. And some of the stops along the way are breathtaking. "The Last Waltz," "Raging Bull," "Goodfellas," "Casino," "The Aviator," "The Wolf Of Wall Street."

There are a few regretful omissions in "Mr. Scorsese." But in an overview of this type, that's inevitable and completely acceptable. This new Apple TV+ series is self-described as a film portrait by Rebecca Miller. And as portraits go, it's by no means a hasty sketch. With its many interviews and film clips, and its exciting use of split screen comparisons and music by the Rolling Stones, "Mr. Scorsese" is closer to a patiently painted masterpiece.

MOSLEY: David Bianculli reviewed "Mr. Scorsese," now streaming on Apple TV+. Tomorrow on FRESH AIR, what's happening with the American economy, how constantly changing tariffs, AI, the immigration crackdown and uncertainty in the job and stock market affect everything from the global economy to our daily lives. We speak with Zanny Minton Beddoes, editor-in-chief of The Economist. I hope you can join us. To keep up with what's on the show and get highlights of our interviews, follow us on Instagram at @nprfreshair.

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MOSLEY: FRESH AIR's executive producer is Danny Miller. Our technical director and engineer is Audrey Bentham. Our managing producer is Sam Briger. Our interviews and reviews are produced and edited by Phyllis Myers, Ann Marie Baldonado, Heidi Saman, Lauren Krenzel, Therese Madden, Monique Nazareth, Thea Chaloner, Susan Nyakundi and Anna Bauman. Our digital media producer is Molly Seavy-Nesper. Our consulting visual producer is Hope Wilson. Roberta Shorrock directs the show. With Terry Gross, I'm Tonya Mosley.

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