Malek graduated from Johns Hopkins University in 1996.[1] She then earned a J.D. degree at Georgetown University Law Center. She worked as a civil rights lawyer at the United States Department of Justice Civil Rights Division and later went back to school to obtain a master's degree in journalism from Columbia University.[citation needed] She published her first book in 2009, A Country Called Amreeka. From 2011 to 2013, she lived in Damascus, Syria.