Malaina Kapoor, author portrait
© Opened Shutter Photography

Malaina Kapoor

Malaina Kapoor is a writer from Redwood City, California. She previously served as a Fellow at PEN America, where she advocated for international human rights, press freedoms, and election integrity. Malaina served on the management team of a refugee resettlement organization and was the producer of In Deep, a nationally syndicated public affairs radio broadcast program. She has received national awards for her poetry, personal essays, and short stories. Malaina will graduate from Stanford University in 2025.
Defiant Dreams

Books

Defiant Dreams

2025 Catalog for First-Year & Common Reading

We are delighted to present our new First-Year & Common Reading Catalog for 2025! From award-winning fiction, poetry, memoir, and biography to new books about science, technology, history, student success, the environment, public health, and current events, the titles presented in our common reading catalog will have students not only eagerly flipping through the pages,

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Videos from the 2024 First-Year Experience® Conference are now available

We’re pleased to share videos from the 2024 First-Year Experience® Conference. Whether you weren’t able to join us at the conference or would simply like to hear the talks again, please take a moment to view the clips below.   Penguin Random House Author Breakfast Monday, February 19th, 7:15 – 8:45 am PST This event

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FROM THE PAGE: An excerpt from Sola Mahfouz and Malaina Kapoor’s Defiant Dreams

Sola Mahfouz was born in Kandahar, Afghanistan, in 1996, the year the Taliban took over her country for the first time. They banned television and photographs, presided over brutal public executions, and turned the clock backward on women’s rights, practically imprisoning women within their own homes and forcing them to wear all-concealing burqas. At age

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How an Afghan Girl Risked Everything for Education

Contributed by Malaina Kapoor, co-author of Defiant Dreams: The Journey of an Afghan Girl Who Risked Everything for Education. A searing, deeply personal memoir of a tenacious Afghan girl who educated herself behind closed doors and fought her way to a new life, the book has received advance praise from Bill Gates, Sal Khan, and

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unCommon Authors, an Author Video Series: DEFIANT DREAMS by Sola Mahfouz and Malaina Kapoor

                                                          PRH Education/Common Reads presents: unCommon Authors unCommon Authors is a monthly video series highlighting exceptional and unique authors talking about their books.   Defiant Dreams is

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