Deepak Unnikrishnan
Deepak Unnikrishnan is a writer from Abu Dhabi and an Associate Arts Professor at New York University Abu Dhabi. His award-winning debut, Temporary People, reimagines the lives of migrant workers in the Gulf through bold, inventive storytelling and won the inaugural Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing, the Hindu Prize, and the Moore Prize. Working across literature, performance, and visual arts, his practice explores language, migration, memory, and belonging.
Colombia
Set among the vast migrant labor force that built the UAE, Temporary People uses surreal fable and linguistic innovation to give voice to the Gulf’s disenfranchised "guest workers." Across twenty-eight linked stories, workers shapeshift into luggage, escape labor camps, and construct rebel communities in the desert. Deepak Unnikrishnan's stunning debut blends dark satire and myth to map an unruly global English and reclaim personhood for the anonymous.