The Many Malalas: Self-Narrativization and the Construction of Mythology through Poetry

Abstract

This article situates poetry and poetic expression as a centerpiece of Malala Yousafzai's activism, foregrounding how Malala's auto/biographical poetic performances enable her to effectively narrate her story, as well as foster a mythology (both personal and communal) that celebrates her sacrifice. Though there are numerous journalistic and scholarly accounts related to Malala, to date, there is no scholarship about Malala's use of poetry for activism. This article rectifies that absence by emphasizing that Malala has always claimed a stake in the public imagination through her poetic performance and its related visual and cultural capital. The first section of the article establishes how through auto/biographic poetic performance, Malala resists the notion of a singular self. In the second section, it focuses on Malala's use of Pashtun mythology in cultivating her visual repertoire, and in the last section it contends that the poets writing for Malala amplify her narrative that there are many Malalas in Swat and beyond.