Deepak Unnikrishnan
Associate Arts Professo, Literature and Creative Writing
Affiliation: NYU Abu Dhabi
Education: BA Fairleigh Dickinson University; MA Fairleigh Dickinson University; MFA School of the Art Institute of Chicago
Deepak Unnikrishnan is a writer from Abu Dhabi.
His book Temporary People, a work of fiction about Gulf narratives steeped in Malayalee and South Asian lingo, won the inaugural Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing, the Hindu Prize, and the Moore Prize. Temporary People was shortlisted for the Believer Book Award, the Shakti Bhatt First Book Prize, the Crossword Book Award, and appeared on the longlist for the Center for Fiction’s First Novel Prize, the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature, and the International Dublin Literary Award.
The French edition, À titre provisoire (Le Nouvel Attila, collection Othello, 2023), was shortlisted for the Prix Littéraire Frontières, awarded by Université de Lorraine and its transborder partners from Germany, Belgium and Luxembourg. The Malayalam edition, ടെമ്പററി പീപ്പിൾസ് (Temporary Peoples, in translation; published by Eka, an imprint of Westland Books, 2023), was translated by the writer Benyamin and illustrated by the graphic artist and storyteller Appupen.
Deepak often works with artists across disciplines. The composer and musician Sarathy Korwar used Deepak's voice and text in his album 'More Arriving (2019), while theater director and writer Laila Soliman, in collaboration with choreographer Faustin Linyekula, adapted Temporary People for the stage and premiered it at the NYUAD Art Center's Black Box (2022).
The conversation around Temporary People set the base for Deepak's latest project, ‘Pettee’, a dance piece co-written and co-directed with the writer Karthika Naïr, composer Sarathy Korwar, and other movement-makers, which premiered at the Arts Center (2024). He is currently at work on expanding the Pettee project, intending to tour the piece internationally.
Deepak, along with Laure Assaf, co-edited Wasafiri's special issue about the UAE (2025), the first time the prestigious academic and literary journal turned its attention towards UAE creatives/scholars. The issue's goal, to archive, then encourage communities within the UAE to be in conversation with their respective histories and futures, is an ongoing project.
Deepak’s fiction has been commissioned for the written publications of the National Pavilion of the UAE at the Venice Biennale (2017), the Oslo Architecture Triennale (2019), the National Pavilion of the UAE at the Venice Architecture Biennale (2023), as well as the Barjeel Art Foundation. His work and literal voice has infiltrated/inhabited art and performance sites, like Centre Pompidou, Center for Art, Research and Alliances, Sharjah Art Foundation and Jameel Arts Center (Dubai). His workshops, on the rare occasion he consents to give them, have also mutated into compositions and resulted in collaborations and commissions with institutions like Public Art Abu Dhabi Biennial and artists like Bik Van Der Pol.
His essays and fiction have appeared in Foreign Affairs, The Guardian, Guernica, Drunken Boat, The State: Vol IV: Dubai, Himal Southasian, and The Penguin Book of Migration Literature (Penguin Classics), among others.
He has been a writer in residence at Sangam House, Ca' Foscari University of Venice, and Brown University, and was a Margaret Bridgman Fellow in Fiction at Bread Loaf.
As a writer/professor he is particularly interested in the role of memory, left-behind stories and language(s) in transient/ephemeral spaces, especially when residents aren't required/expected to belong. His courses, he teaches and advises in the MFA in Art and Media, as well as Literature & Creative writing, reflect his expanding and trans-disciplinary interests.
He is also the winner of the 2014 Gwendolyn Brooks Open Mic Award and has performed or read from his work at literary festivals, independent bookstores, bars masquerading as cafés and cafés masquerading as bars.
He is hard of hearing.