Patel is the author of four novels, including
Le silence des Chagos published in France by Editions de l’Olivier-Le Seuil and in English by Restless Books as
The Silence of the Chagos (2019). She has written numerous short stories in French and Mauritian Creole as well as five graphic novels, two plays, and translations.
Patel was an International Writers Program (IWP) Honorary Fellow in the US in 2016, a fellow at the Hutchins Centre-W. E. B. du Bois Institute at Harvard University in 2018, and a mentor for the Young Women Writers Mentorship Program of the IWP in 2019. She staged a production of Niamain (the story of an African princess enslaved in the eighteenth century) in 2019. She is currently working on a novel based on the stories of women who have fought for freedom at different levels.