I am Dipika Mukherjee — author, poet, and essayist. My work spans fiction, poetry, personal essays, and, occasionally, academic writing.
Travel is central to my creative life. I wander, I listen, and then I write — often about the moments when language dissolves, familiar certainties blur, and a city reveals itself through sound, movement, and feeling rather than meaning. A collection of my travel essays was published by Penguin Random House (SEA) in 2023.
When I’m not writing or traveling, I teach at StoryStudio Chicago and at the Graham School of the University of Chicago.
Chicago has been home since 2012, following several years in Shanghai, where I served as Distinguished Professor at Shanghai International Studies University. I hold a PhD in English (Sociolinguistics) from Texas A&M University.
I occasionally write a literary column for The Edge in Malaysia and contribute to a range of other publications. Please feel free to explore the site, browse my work, and linger awhile — thank you for being here.
Latest Release
Writer’s Postcards
(2023)
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
(2022)
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.