Immigrant Memoirs

For years, Joy Neal Kidney carried a story she felt called to tell—a World War II family history marked by love, courage, and devastating loss. In the process of writing that story, she discovered something more: a gift for telling true American stories. Beginning her freelance career in her forties, Joy went on to publish dozens of narratives in newspapers, magazines, and through the popular podcast Our American Stories. What started as a single story became a calling—to preserve the voices, memories, and moments that might otherwise be lost to time. The Immigrant and the Outlaw ...

Named a Best Memoir of 2023 by Oprah Daily Selected by Time, NPR, and BookPage as a Best Book of 2023 “This book…is what memoir writing in the hands of a caring, curious wunderkind can be.” —Kiese Laymon, author of Heavy From the award-winning author of Stealing Buddha’s Dinner, a...

"Lee's narration of her brilliant memoir is penetrating with insight, raw with confessions, radiant with fury. Her meticulous writing is already stupendous, but the unguarded emotions that flow through her candid voice are a remarkable enhancement. Her tears of frustration and gratitude will...

In this darkly funny and irreverent memoir, the daughter of a mail-order bride unpacks her undocumented childhood in America. The perfect listen for fans of the jaw-dropping twists of 90 Day Fiancé and the emotional gut punch of I’m Glad My Mom Died. Growing up undocumented in Houston, Texas...

"This is simply a beautiful, moving memoir read exceptionally well by Shahani." — AudioFile Magazine This program is read by the author. Here We Are is a heart-wrenching memoir about an immigrant family's American Dream, the justice system that took it away, and the daughter who fought to get...

“They’re gone,” I hear someone say. “Your mother, they all left. Did you know?” The door opens without resistance. They didn’t even bother to lock; they never did. Doors are never locked here, not in this apartment nor any other. Who would steal anything here? There is nothing to take. Born in a rural desert town to a family of Persian immigrants, Miriam was twelve years old the first time she had three meals in one day. The tenth daughter of twelve siblings, she was raised so far away from anyone who might care that there was no one around to see her endure the debilitating ...

A #1 New York Times bestseller and the eagerly anticipated sequel to the Pulitzer Prize–winning Angela’s Ashes, this masterpiece from Frank McCourt tells of his American journey from impoverished immigrant to brilliant teacher and raconteur. Frank McCourt’s glorious childhood memoir...

From the Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Cuba: An American History comes a heartbreaking yet redemptive memoir about migration, separation, and the love of one family forcing its way through the fissures of history. In 1963, four years after Fidel Castro came to power, Ada Ferrer’s mother...

Daring, flashy, innovative, volatile—no matter what they call him, Zlatan Ibrahimovic is one of soccer’s brightest stars. A top-scoring striker and captain of the Swedish national team, he has dominated the world’s most storied teams, including Ajax, Juventus, Inter Milan, Barcelona, AC...

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER Finalist for the PEN/USA Award in Creative Nonfiction, the Thurber Prize for American Humor, and the Audie Award in Biography/Memoir “Remarkable . . . told with wry humor shorn of sentimentality . . . In the end, what sticks with the reader is an exuberant...

Discover the story of one of the most transcendent players in NBA history–from his early life living in poverty in Greece to his inspiring rise to super-stardom in America. As the face of the NBA's new world order, Giannis Antetokounmpo has overcome unfathomable obstacles to become a symbol of...

The star of Marvel’s first Asian superhero film, Shang-Chi and the Legend of the Ten Rings, tells his own origin story of being a Chinese immigrant, his battles with cultural stereotypes and his own identity, becoming a TV star, and landing the role of a lifetime. In this honest, inspiring and...

It’s easy to talk about freedom. But unless someone has lived in a world that suffocates freedom, it’s difficult to appreciate the liberty found in America. This is the true story of a Pakistani Muslim who immigrates to the United States for college and discovers five transformational freedoms along the way: the freedom to fail and start over, to love, to choose one’s faith, to be an entrepreneur, and to self-govern.

Award-winning comedian Zarna Garg turns her astonishing life story into a hilarious memoir, spilling all the chai on her wild ride from escaping an arranged marriage and homelessness in India to carving her own path in America and launching a dazzling second act in midlife. “A deeply honest...

AN NAACP IMAGE AWARD NOMINEE America’s most popular sports media figure tells it like it is in this “raw, deeply authentic, and immensely entertaining” (Bob Iger, #1 New York Times bestselling author and CEO of The Walt Disney Company) book, not only dishing out his signature, uninhibited...

Violinist Vijay Gupta’s searing memoir of prodigy, ambition, collapse, and renewal reveals how music is not just performance but also survival, a lifeline of human connection—for readers of Jeremy Denk's Every Good Boy Does Fine, Hua Hsu's Stay True, and Patrick Bringley’s All the Beauty...

An inspiring survivor of Mao’s Cultural Revolution in China makes a passionate case that history is eerily repeating itself as the Woke Revolution spreads across America. Xi Van Fleet lived through the horrors of the Chinese Cultural Revolution as a schoolgirl. Forced to the countryside with...

The moving memoir of a scientist coming of age as an immigrant in America who finds her calling at the forefront of the AI revolution. Wired called Dr. Fei-Fei Li “one of a tiny group of scientists—a group perhaps small enough to fit around a kitchen table—who are responsible for AI’s...

A NATIONAL BESTSELLER! An unflinching memoir about navigating social mobility as a first gen Latina, offering both a riveting personal story and an examination of the unacknowledged emotional tolls of being a trailblazer. "This is literary love medicine, a book you will not soon forget.”...

In this inspirational and unflinchingly honest memoir, acclaimed author Reyna Grande describes her childhood torn between the United States and Mexico, and shines a light on the experiences, fears, and hopes of those who choose to make the harrowing journey across the border. Reyna Grande...