What It Meant to Survive

Featuring strong queer female protagonists who must navigate class, race, religion, language, and nationality, Mala Kumar's What It Meant to Survive is a poignant and heartbreaking commentary on life in modern-day America and Nigeria. Ramya and Juliet begin to uplift each other and heal the moment they match on Tinder. For nearly a decade, Ramya, an American of Indian origin from Virginia, has grappled with her survivor's guilt from a devastating mass shooting that occurred during her last year of university. Halfway around the world in Nigeria, Juliet has survived family tragedies, economic downturns, and an oppressive patriarchy. With a one-chance swipe on their phones in a country foreign to them both, the two women begin a remarkable romantic relationship that most fairy tales wouldn't dare to depict. But can they hold onto each other? As their lives intertwine, Ramya suffers acute memory loss so pronounced that she sometimes forget