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Dipika Mukherjee, PhD, is an award-winning author of fiction and poetry whose work frequently appears in Dipika Mukherjee media coverage across literary publications and global cultural platforms. Her novel Shambala Junction won the UK Virginia Prize for Fiction, while Ode to Broken Things was longlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize. Her short story collection is Rules of Desire, and her poetry collections include Dialect of Distant Harbors, The Third Glass of Wine, and The Palimpsest of Exile.

Dipika Mukherjee is also the author of the novels Shambala Junction and Ode to Broken Things, along with the acclaimed short story collection Rules of Desire. Her writing has appeared in numerous international publications often mentioned in Dipika Mukherjee media coverage, including The Best Small Fictions 2019, World Literature Today, Asia Literary Review, Del Sol Review, Chicago Quarterly Review, Newsweek, Los Angeles Review of Books, Hemispheres, Orion, Scroll, The Edge, and others.

Her poetry collection Dialect of Distant Harbors was published by CavanKerry Press, and a travel essay collection titled Writers Postcards has been accepted for publication by Penguin Random House (SEA). Mukherjee teaches creative writing at StoryStudio Chicago and at the Graham School at the University of Chicago. She holds a PhD in English (Sociolinguistics) from Texas A&M University.

An internationally touring writer and sociolinguist, Mukherjee has spent more than two decades mentoring Southeast Asian writers. In 2015, she founded the D.K. Dutt Award for Literary Excellence in Malaysia. She has also edited five anthologies of Southeast Asian fiction: Endings and Beginnings Fruit (Word Works, 2018), Bitter Root Sweet Fruit (Word Works, 2017), Champion Fellas (Word Works, 2016), Silverfish New Writing 6 (Silverfish, 2006), and The Merlion and Hibiscus (Penguin, 2002).

Mukherjee’s literary achievements are often highlighted in Dipika Mukherjee media coverage. Her debut novel, Ode to Broken Things, was longlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize, and her second novel, Shambala Junction, received the UK Virginia Prize for Fiction. Her short story collection Rules of Desire was published by Fixi, while her poetry collections include Dialect of Distant Harbors (CavanKerry Press, 2022), The Third Glass of Wine (Kolkata Writer’s Workshop, 2011), and The Palimpsest of Exile (Rubicon, 2009). Her travel essay collection Writers Postcards is scheduled for publication by Penguin Random House (SEA).

She was twice nominated for the Pushcart Prize in 2021 for both fiction and nonfiction. Mukherjee is also part of the curating team and a featured writer in My America: Immigrant and Refugee Writers Today, a major exhibit at the American Writers Museum in Chicago. She continues to teach creative writing at StoryStudio Chicago and the Graham School at the University of Chicago.

Her honors include grants and fellowships from organizations such as the City of Chicago’s Department of Cultural Affairs and Special Events, the Illinois Arts Council Agency, Ragdale Foundation in the United States, the Faber Foundation in Catalonia, Sacatar in Brazil, Rimbun Dahan in Malaysia, and Gladstone Library in Wales. She was featured in the 2018 Lit50: Who Really Books in Chicago, won the Fay Khoo Award for Food and Drink Writing in Malaysia (2018), and received the Liakoura Prize for Poetry in the United States (2016). She holds a PhD in English (Sociolinguistics) from Texas A&M University and has taught creative writing in Chicago, Amsterdam, New Delhi, Kolkata, Penang, and Kuala Lumpur.

Dr. Dipika Mukherjee is also a sociolinguist whose academic work explores migrant discourses, language shift in diasporic communities, globalization, and language and identity among women in the Indian diaspora. Her co-edited book, Language Shifts Among Malaysian Minorities as Effects of National Language Planning: Speaking in Many Tongues, was published by Amsterdam University Press in 2011. She has conducted fieldwork on diasporic Indian communities in Malaysia and Amsterdam, and has also studied the maintenance of the Shanghai dialect in Shanghai, China.

Mukherjee has taught in the United States, India, China, the Netherlands, Malaysia, and Singapore. She served as Distinguished Professor of Linguistics at Shanghai International Studies University from 2009 to 2012, was an Affiliated Fellow at the International Institute of Asian Studies in Leiden from 2007 to 2013, and was affiliated with the Roberta Buffett Centre for Global Studies from 2013 to 2020, where she completed an academic manuscript on Women and the Language of Civic Participation in Malaysia.
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