“This memoir is a warning thrown to the world”
July's book club pick documents a brutal history that feels eerily present
July’s Memoiring Book Club Pick is The Lucky Ones: A Memoir (Crown/PRH, 2024), a PEN America Award finalist by debut author Zara Chowdhary.
Both a haunting account of a state-led anti-Muslim pogrom when Chowdhary was just 16 years old *and* a chilling reminder of how nationalism scapegoats the vulnerable—then and now, The Lucky Ones is an incredibly relevant book for our times.
Join our live Zoom event with author Zara Chowdhary on July 30 at 6:30pm — RSVP now. Free for subscribers.
Chowdhary is a newly appointed creative writing and South Asian studies professor at the University of Iowa and a PEN America 2025 finalist for her debut memoir The Lucky Ones. It received starred reviews from Kirkus and Publishers Weekly, and Time, Esquire, and others named it a top memoir of 2024. She has previously written for documentary TV, film, and advertising.
We’ll be chatting with author Zara Chowdhary about
How to write about experiences (personal or political) that others wish to suppress or erase
Researching historical events that surrounds your personal story
Grappling with the emotional complexity of survival and “luck”
Power and POV when the main character is a daughter
…and Zara will also take your content and craft questions!
Get your copy of The Lucky Ones now and see you on July 30. Registration required.
“[The Lucky Ones] is a warning thrown to the world by a young survivor, to democracies that fail to protect their vulnerable, and to homes that won’t listen to their daughters.”
The Lucky Ones at a glance
One day, in 2002, 16 year-old Zara Chowdhary is preparing for school exams when a train is set on fire. Life changes overnight. In response, Hindu neighbors, friends, and citizens become mobs.
For three months, Chowdhary’s family remains fearfully under siege, along with thousands of other Muslim families living in Gujarat, India, as civil life in the “world’s largest democracy” collapses under the weight of Hindu nationalism.
Later, Narendra Modi, the chief minister of state at the time, will be accused of fomenting the massacre that took the lives of 2,000 Muslims, and yet will rise to become India’s prime minister, a role he still holds.
Set during the brutal, state-sanctioned anti-Muslim pogrom, The Lucky Ones is a historical redress, written with lyrical moments and everyday scenes in the family’s crumbling apartment building in the city’s old quarter.
The Lucky Ones holds India accountable for its largest modern pogrom, even as its perpetrators rise to power, and asks what is lost when democracies turn against their own.
Before you go
Ever worry you’ll regret personal work you’ve published? Here’s what
had to say to a subscriber about out-growing your ideas at Memoiring last week.Update: The Deep Water Literary Festival — my panels and writing workshop, included — was a huge success! If I get my act together, I’ll share some of the polished festival pics. Until then, here’s me in chartreuse (!), apres my In Motherhood panel, with two Memoiring authors
and , and with two dynamos outside my workshop from my own writing group.
Thanks for reading all the way to the end. Know a reader or writer who might enjoy Memoiring and attending our author events? Please share this! Memoiringly, Melisse
Great pick, I've been wanting to read this!
https://open.substack.com/pub/rickbailey/p/bag-man-the-things-i-carry?r=651pn&utm_medium=ios