10 things to know about Chandrika Narayanan-Mohan

6:15am | Fri 20 Oct 2023

We’re very excited to welcome Chandrika Narayanan-Mohan to Dingle Lit this year. Multi-talented, international and coming to a poetry event near you – Chandrika will be joining Victoria Kennefick for a poetry reading and discussion, chaired by Nicholas McLachlan, on Saturday 18th November at 6pm.

But who is the fabulously-named Chandrika Narayanan-Mohan? We deep dive into her background and some recommended works to watch and read before the festival.

  1. Chandrika Narayanan-Mohan is a Dublin-based, writer, performer, and cultural consultant from India, who has also lived in North America, Sweden, Turkey, and the UK.
  2. Her grandfather was K.R. Narayanan, the first Dalit to be elected President of India, while her mother was a diplomat and, later, an ambassador and her father worked at the World Bank.
  3. She is Writer in Residence for the Institute of Physics for 2023.
  4. Chandrika is also on the Board of the Irish Writers Centre.
  5. In London, Chandrika interned at both Christie’s Auction House and The Victoria and Albert Museum.
  6. In 2012, Narayanan-Mohan moved to Dublin, where she received an MA in arts management and cultural policy from University College Dublin.
  7. Fun fact: she is a co-founder of the Irish Craft Cocktail Awards. We’re sure she’ll be impressed by the selection available locally – you can’t beat a spicy margarita from Kennedy’s!
  8. She was commissioned by Cavan-born environmental artist AlanJames Burns to write The Waking Walls, a caoineadh and collaborative theatrical artwork set around Cloughoughter Castle – this iconic monument’s sorrowful lament for our shared environmental and biodiversity losses it has witnessed over its lifetime.
  9. She is a regular reviewer for Childrens Books Ireland’s Inis Magazine, and her poem Nightboarder appears in the new anthology I Am the Wind: Irish Poems for Children Everywhere.
  10. Her work has been published by Dedalus Press, Lifeboat Press, Poetry Ireland, Banshee, and lately, her poem The Knee appeared in issue 47 of Stinging Fly – available to purchase here. 

Reserve your ticket for Poetry with Chandrika Narayanan-Mohan and Victoria Kennefick here.

Chandrika will also be interviewing Greek-Irish trans author, Soula Emmanuel, about her novel Wild Geese, on Saturday 18th November at 12pm. Book here.