Malala Yousafzai tells Desert Island Discs: 'Birmingham has become a second home'

Malala Yousafzai was targeted on her way to school at 15

Malala Yousafzai, the 23-year-old human rights activist and Nobel Peace Prize winner, has opened up about life as a student, her hopes for the future, and why she loves a Birmingham accent.

Here are seven things we learned from her interview with BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs.

1. Birmingham is her 'second home'

It has been more than eight years since Malala arrived at the Queen Elizabeth hospital in Birmingham, after being shot in the head by Taliban gunmen while on the bus to school in Pakistan's Swat valley, for saying that girls should be educated.

She tells Lauren Laverne that when she woke up from a medically induced coma, she didn't realise quite how long she would stay in the UK for - and even asked her dad to bring her physics revision from Pakistan because she had exams coming up.

Since then, she says the city "has become a second home".

"Firstly we had to understand the accent," she laughs. She's got pretty good at a Brummie accent, though, and even quotes from a speech she gave to the United Nations to demonstrate. "I love [it]," she says (you can hear it about 28 minutes in to the Desert Island Discs episode).

"But Swat, Pakistan - that is always my first home and that's still in our hearts," she says.

"I hope to go back to Pakistan soon to see my home again."

• Who is Malala Yousafzai?

• The girl who was shot for going to school

2. She embraced student life

Malala met Greta Thunberg when the teen climate change campaigner visited Lady Margaret Hall

Last year, Malala graduated from the University of Oxford with a degree in Philosophy, Politics and Economics. Like a lot of new students, moving to university was another big adjustment.

"It's the first time you have left your home," she says. "You are learning what it means to be independent."

She says the "best times" were when she was hanging out with friends. For the first time since her traumatic experience, she says she felt her childhood had "come back".

"I wasn't having much fun before university, but when I went to university and when I connected to people of my age, friends of my age, that is when I realised that 'okay, I am actually not that old and I can still have those experiences of youth that I deserve and that everyone else is having'," she says.

She finished her exams at home because of the coronavirus pandemic and celebrated with her family. But she still catches up with her friends on video chat.

3. She loves an 80s sitcom

She has taken some time to relax since finishing her degree, watching shows like Blackadder, Only Fools and Horses and Yes Minister. "I am a big fan of British sitcoms so I always watch those shows," she laughs.

She's also enjoyed West End hits - a track from Phantom of the Opera made it on to the list of songs she'd take with her if she were stranded on a desert island.

"When I moved to the UK I was very new to this culture and I was trying to find what I liked and disliked in the music and the art here. I realised that I really liked musicals," she says. "I watched the Phantom of the Opera so many times and I loved each and every song."

4. She's a Belieber

Another tune she would take with her is Justin Bieber's Never Say Never.

"I used to listen to these songs in Pakistan and I was very new to pop culture, but it was trending at that time," she says.

5. She's bossy... but in a 'positive' way

Malala Yousafzai celebrated her graduation with her family last year

Asked how she separates her public and private lives, she says "there is another Malala in the house".

"I am quite bossy in a way, in a positive way!" she says. "I lecture my brothers all the time... They probably need it, boys need a lot of lectures."

She says her dad, fellow activist Ziauddin Yousafzai, is an "amazing feminist father" who didn't like the way his own sisters were treated when he was growing up and "ensured that I get treated the same way as my brothers".

And her parents' relationship? The story of how they met in Pakistan is "quite cute", she says.

"They didn't have Tinder or these dating apps or anything... they couldn't go on a date or anything," she says. "My mother would sometimes visit their house and they'd just look at each other from a distance, that is sort of their love story."

6. She might go into politics one day

Malala says that when she was younger she used to think: "One day when I'll become the prime minister, I'll fix everything".

"What I have learned is that things are quite complicated," she says. "Right now my focus is to work on girls' education and then I don't know, I could consider politics in 20 years or something. There's always time for that!"

Reflecting on what inspired her to become an activist in Pakistan, she says: "For me the fear was living in that situation forever, for my whole life.

"You just feel this strength within you, even though you're tiny. And I am still tiny - I'm like 5ft!"

7. She's a big fan of Plato and... lip balm

Asked what else she would take with her to a desert island, she says she became a "big fan" of Plato at university and would take his complete works.

"I cannot survive without a lip balm, so I'm going to take my lip balm - which is a slightly coloured sort of lip balm so it gives a beautiful colour," she adds. "I would be very happy with that forever."