With wonder, empathy, and even rage, DIALECT OF DISTANT HARBORS summons a shared humanity to examine issues of illness and family. As the world recovers from a global pandemic and the failure of modern government, these poems are incantations to our connections to the human family—whether in Asia, Europe, or the United States.

“Mukherjee’s latest poetry collection is a penetrating, intercontinental, and reflective sheaf of poems on aging, illness, faith, and family written in a keen diasporic music. Mukherjee is skilled in various poetic forms. Her vision is clear and her sensory awareness of the stuff of human experience is stunning. As she says, ‘sometimes the third eye is a camera, / sometimes a fist to the heart.’”—Maya Marshall

Dipika Mukherjee is the author of two novels, SHAMBALA JUNCTION and ODE TO BROKEN THINGS, and a short story collection, RULES OF DESIRE. She has published two books of poetry, THE PALIMPSEST OF EXILE and THE THIRD GLASS OF WINE. She teaches at the Graham School at the University of Chicago, as well as StoryStudio Chicago.

The event is sponsored by UNL’s Institute for Ethnic Studies and the Creative Writing Program of the Department of English.