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Nishi Chawla is a well-known and prolific Asian American poet, playwright, novelist, academic, editor, and independent filmmaker. She earned her doctorate in English from George Washington University, Washington DC in 1997 and did post-doctorate work at Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, MD. In 1998, she migrated with her family to Washington DC. For twenty years, she taught English as a tenured Professor at Delhi University and, for a further twenty, she was a Faculty Member at the University of Maryland, MD, and at Thomas Edison University, NJ.

Nishi Chawla has published seven collections of poetry, ten plays, four feature films, and two novels. The broad and magnanimous themes of her work across these multiple genres reflect her passionate concern to address social, cultural and political issues and also, crucially, to explore the subtle ways in which these intertwine with the personal experiences, histories and inner worlds of individuals. In her poetry she explores the rich psychogeography and myths of India, including the Himalayas and the Ganges, and the ways in which traditions and myths of gods and goddesses intertwine with the lives, characters and beliefs of modern men and women. Unsurprisingly, Nishi Chawla’s writings are also situated within the most pressing concerns of our contemporary world, including: climate change, pandemics, the global refugee crisis; ethnic, religious and gender biases and oppressions; war and peace, violence and non-violence; and myth, tradition and locality. Her novels, plays and films aim not only to analyze and dissect social and cultural issues, but also to address psychological complexities and contradictions and to re-examine the needs and nuances that conflict and crisis precipitate in human lives.

Nishi Chawla is honored to have been only the third Indian poet ever to have been invited to the ‘The Poet and the Poem’ program organized by the US Library of Congress. Her poetry reading at the US Library of Congress can be heard. She is among the very few South Asian dramatists whose plays have been staged off Broadway in New York, with Kasturba versus Gandhi in June 2024.

Nishi Chawla’s has been a featured poet at many poetry forums, readings and festivals in both India and USA. Her appearance at events in India include: the Jaipur Literary Festival; the Kerala Literary Festival; the Goa and Hyderabad Literary Festivals; and the Sahitya Akademi and Literary Forum in New Delhi. Her appearances in the USA include: the Indo-American Arts Council Literary Festival in New York; the Montana Book Festival in Missoula; and the Writer’s Center in Bethesda, Maryland. In Washington DC, where she lives, she has appeared at: the Asia Society, the Asian American Forum, the Gandhi Center, and on the Who’s Who TV Show on the Capital Forum. Her poems are published regularly in American literary journals and her writings have been reviewed in major Indian and American journals and newspapers. In 2018, she received a citation from the State of Maryland in recognition of her dedication to the arts and to theatre. She is a member of the American Association of Poets and Writers and of the American Academy of Poets, and she has served on the board of the Actors’ Center in Washington DC.