I write fiction and poetry and essays and (sometimes!) academic papers.

I travel. Then I write about the travel. Nothing like the lulling motion of an old train track, or a path that calls with smells of warm food, both familiar and new. I love what I discover when I lose myself in a city where I speak none of the languages, and my certainties fall through a fog of sound.

A collection of my travel essays will be published by Penguin Random House (SEA) in 2023. Right now, I am working on a third novel, as well as a hybrid memoir. When I’m not writing, or travelling, I teach at StoryStudio Chicago and the Graham School of University of Chicago).

Chicago has been home since 2012, after Shanghai, where I was Distinguished Professor at Shanghai International Studies University. I hold a doctoral degree in English (Sociolinguistics) from Texas A&M University.

Sometimes I write a literary column for The Edge in Malaysia I am always Contributing Editor for Jaggery. I also write for a lot of other publications, so feel free to browse through my site while you are here and read my work…thanks for stopping by!

Latest Release

Writer’s Postcards

Part travelogue, part memoir, and part commentary, Writer’s Postcards is a collection of essays that examine imagination and culture through the lens of geography. A flaneuse and person of the world, Dipika Mukherjee takes readers through various encounters from her highly mobile life.

Dialect of Distant Harbors

This poetry collection explores themes of home, grieving, and kinship. With wonder, empathy, and even rage, Dialect of Distant Harbors summons a shared humanity to examine issues of illness and family. Dipika Mukherjee's poems redefine belonging and migration in a misogynistic and racist world.

Shambala Junction

WINNER OF THE 4TH VIRGINIA PRIZE FOR FICTION

Ode to Broken Things

Longlisted For Man Asian Literary Prize (Published as Thunder Demons )

Rules of Desire

In Rules of Desire, yearning becomes both dangerous and erotic.