Tishani Doshi’s “Instructions on Surviving Genocide” is a poem about the difficulty of making meaning from violence, history and survival. Doshi has described history as interpretation that changes over time; she has not identified one particular genocide as the poem’s definitive subject. Scroll published the poem on August 20, 2025, crediting Pangyrus as its first publisher.
What is “Instructions on Surviving Genocide” about?
The title can invite readers to look for a direct account of a specific genocide. The available author commentary instead points toward a poem concerned with how violence is understood and narrated, and with what survival might require. That framing leaves room for the poem’s images to resonate beyond one historical case; it does not establish a single definitive referent.
In a December 15, 2021 interview with Emily DeMaioNewton for Tricycle, Doshi was asked about the tension between the reality of war and genocide and the narratives history constructs. She replied, “To a large degree, history is interpretation,” and said that “the poem sits with the difficulty of this for a while before suggesting that survival may involve striking out alone.” This is Doshi’s account of the poem’s movement, not a key that settles every image or reading.
What has Doshi said about the poem?
Doshi’s interview offers two useful points of orientation: histories are interpreted rather than simply received, and the poem remains with the difficulty of that problem before turning toward the possibility of survival. Her phrasing is deliberately measured: survival “may involve” striking out alone. It is not presented as a universal instruction or a simple resolution to the violence the poem confronts.
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Where was the poem published?
Scroll’s publication page is dated August 20, 2025. It notes that the poem first appeared in Pangyrus and was republished on Scroll with Doshi’s permission. The publication sequence matters: the poem’s appearance in a later collection does not make that collection its first publication.
A 2021 Telegraph India interview about A God at the Door lists “Instructions on Surviving Genocide” among the collection’s contents and describes the book as bringing together more than 50 poems. The interview situates the poem within Doshi’s broader body of work, while Scroll’s note identifies its earlier publication in Pangyrus.
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A performance context, not a definitive interpretation
The Gazelle reported that Doshi performed the poem at the 2020 online event Armed & Dangerous, an artistic response to police brutality, racism and casteism. That performance connects the poem with the event’s stated concerns, but it does not prove that the poem applies only to those issues or that they exhaust its meaning.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How to read the poem alongside historical accounts
The poem is a literary work, not a substitute for documentary evidence about a particular genocide. Doshi’s remarks invite attention to the ways historical narratives interpret events, while leaving the poem open to more than one context. Readers seeking factual accounts of a specific atrocity should consult sources that identify the event, evidence and historical record directly; the poem’s title alone cannot establish those details.
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