Pankaj Mishra – författare

LONGLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE 2018 NEW STATESMAN BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2017'The kind of vision the world needs right now...Pankaj Mishra shouldn't stop thinking' Christopher de Bellaigue, Financial Times'This is the most astonishing, convincing, and disturbing book I've read in years' Joe Sacco'Urgent, profound and extraordinarily timely' John BanvilleHow can we explain the origins of the great wave of paranoid hatreds that seem inescapable in our close-knit world - from American 'shooters' and ISIS to Trump, from a rise in vengeful nationalism across the world to racism and misogyny on social media? In Age of Anger, Pankaj Mishra answers our bewilderment by casting his gaze back to the eighteenth century, before leading us to the present.He shows that as the world became modern those who were unable to fulfil its promises - freedom, stability and prosperity - were increasingly susceptible to demagogues. The many who came late to this new world or were left, or pushed, behind, reacted in horrifyingly similar ways: intense hatred of invented enemies, attempts to re-create an imaginary golden age, and self-empowerment through spectacular violence. It was from among the ranks of the disaffected that the militants of the 19th century arose - angry young men who became cultural nationalists in Germany, messianic revolutionaries in Russia, bellicose chauvinists in Italy, and anarchist terrorists internationally.Today, just as then, the wider embrace of mass politics, technology, and the pursuit of wealth and individualism has cast many more millions adrift in a literally demoralized world, uprooted from tradition but still far from modernity - with the same terrible resultsMaking startling connections and comparisons, Age of Anger is a book of immense urgency and profound argument. It is a history of our present predicament unlike any other.

Pankaj Mishra's provocative account of how China, India and the Muslim World are remaking the world in their own image - shortlisted for the Orwell Prize 2013SHORTLISTED FOR THE ORWELL PRIZE 2013Viewed in the West as a time of self-confident progress, the Victorian period was experienced by Asians as a catastrophe. As the British gunned down the last heirs to the Mughal Empire or burned down the Summer Palace in Beijing, it was clear that for Asia to recover a new way of thinking was needed. Pankaj Mishra re-tells the history of the past two centuries, showing how a remarkable, disparate group of thinkers, journalists, radicals and charismatics emerged from the ruins of empire to create an unstoppable Asian renaissance, one whose ideas lie behind everything from the Chinese Communist Party to the Muslim Brotherhood, and have made our world what it is today.Reviews:'Arrestingly original ... this penetrating and disquieting book should be on the reading list of anybody who wants to understand where we are today' John Gray, Independent 'A riveting account that makes new and illuminating connections ... deeply entertaining and deeply humane' Hisham Matar'Fascinating ... a rich and genuinely thought-provoking book' Noel Malcolm, Sunday Telegraph'Provocative, shaming and convincing' Michael Binyon, The Times 'Lively ... engaging ... retains the power to shock' Mark Mazower, Financial Times'Subtle, erudite and entertaining' Economist, New DelhiAbout the author:Pankaj Mishra is the author of Butter Chicken in Ludiana, The Romantics, An End to Suffering and Temptations of the West. He writes principally for the Guardian, The New York Times, London Review of Books and New York Review of Books. He lives in London, Shimla and New York.

'His great book ... masterly in its prescience and its lucidity' ANITA DESAI A compelling portrait of a society in the grip of imperialism, A Passage to India depicts the fate of individuals caught in the great political and cultural conflicts of their age. It begins when Adela and her elderly companion Mrs Moore arrive in the Indian town of Chandrapore, and feel trapped by its insular and prejudiced British community. Determined to explore the 'real India', they seek the guidance of the charming and mercurial Dr Aziz. But a mysterious incident occurs while they are exploring the Marabar caves, and the well-respected doctor soon finds himself at the centre of a scandal. Edited by OLIVER STALLYBRASS with an Introduction by PANKAJ MISHRA

‘Mishra’s book is in the best tradition of Buddhism, both dispassionate and deeply engaged, complicated and simple, erudite and profoundly humane’ The New York TimesAn accomplished history of the Buddha, An End to Suffering is also a deeply personal story – the story of Pankaj Mishra’s search for meaning, for truth and peace in the modern world and, specifically, in a postcolonial, independent India. As he describes his travels to unearth the origins of the Buddha, Mishra offers glimpses into his own quest for enlightenment, from childhood to the September 11 attacks, from family background to friends met and made, from lessons learned to his achievements as a writer. Through this, Mishra reveals the parallels between his time and the Buddha’s, between their respective journeys – and that of their country – in search of progress and reconciliation.‘Mishra is one of the most important voices of our generation’ Peter Frankopan, author of The Silk RoadsPart of the Picador Collection, a series showcasing the best of modern literature.

________________'This anthology will help turn your intellectual understanding of oppression into an emotional one' - New Statesman'Thanks for being who you are and for giving us such exposure to wonderful people. Palestine is proud of you' - Suad Amiry________________The Palestine Festival of Literature was established in 2008. Bringing together writers from all corners of the globe, it aims to help Palestinians break the cultural siege imposed by the Israeli military occupation, to strengthen their artistic links with the rest of the world, and to reaffirm, in the words of Edward Said, ‘the power of culture over the culture of power’.Celebrating the tenth anniversary of PalFest, This Is Not a Border is a collection of essays, poems and stories from some of the world’s most distinguished artists, responding to their experiences at this unique festival. Both heartbreaking and hopeful, their gathered work is a testament to the power of literature to promote solidarity and courage in the most desperate of situations.Contributors: Susan Abulhawa, Suad Amiry, Victoria Brittain, Jehan Bseiso, Teju Cole, Molly Crabapple, Selma Dabbagh, Mahmoud Darwish, Najwan Darwish, Geoff Dyer, Yasmin El-Rifae, Adam Foulds, Ru Freeman, Omar Robert Hamilton, Suheir Hammad, Nathalie Handal, Mohammed Hanif, Jeremy Harding, Rachel Holmes, John Horner, Remi Kanazi, Brigid Keenan, Mercedes Kemp, Omar El-Khairy, Nancy Kricorian, Sabrina Mahfouz, Jamal Mahjoub, Henning Mankell, Claire Messud, China Miéville, Pankaj Mishra, Deborah Moggach, Muiz, Maath Musleh, Michael Palin, Ed Pavlic, Atef Abu Saif, Kamila Shamsie, Raja Shehadeh, Gillian Slovo, Ahdaf Soueif, Linda Spalding, Will Sutcliffe, Alice WalkerWith messages from China Achebe, Michael Ondaatje and J. M. Coetzee________________'Every literary act, whether it is a great epic poem or an honest piece of journalism or a simple nonsense tale for children is a blow against the forces of stupidity and ignorance and darkness … The Palestine Festival of Literature exists to do just that – and I salute it for its work. Not only this year but for as long as it is necessary' - Philip Pullman

In just a few years, Arun's friends become the success stories of their generation. Will it be Alia, a female writer and influencer, who is piecing together the story of a big global financial scandal?Run and Hide is a novel about a group of friends in an age of upheaval and breakdown;

WITH A NEW INTRODUCTION BY THE AUTHOR'If you buy one literary novel this year, make sure it's this' THE TIMES'The Romantics looks to Flaubert's Sentimental Education, to E.M. Forster, to Turgenev. But it is the product of a distinctive and sharp intelligence' HILARY MANTEL 'Grips the reader as artfully and as compellingly as the first page of A Passage to India' THE NEW YORK REVIEW OF BOOKSWINNER OF THE LOS ANGELES TIMES ART SEIDENBAUM AWARD FOR FIRST FICTION1989. In the holy city of Varanasi, 19-year-old Samar rents a room to avoid a small-town job and lose himself in reading about worlds outside of India. But when he is thrust into local a circle of privileged European and American expats, led by the charismatic Miss West, Samar will soon face his own silent desires and crumbling beliefs.'A work of art' Financial Times'A supernova' The Washington Post'A charming debut' The Independent

FROM THE AWARD WINNING AUTHOR OF AGE OF ANGER COMES A GATSBY-ESQUE TALE OF WEALTH AND AMBITION'A book that demands to be read' MOHSIN HAMID 'Terrific . . . deeply satisfying to read' KAMILA SHAMSIEArun and his two classmates, Aseem and Virendra, are the success stories of their generation. As graduates of the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology, they have smashed social barriers and played-out Gatsby-style fantasies across the globe.Run and Hide is a lyrical and piercing story of morality, materialism and upheaval in an every-changing world.'Sharp, provocative and engaging . . . Run and Hide might be the most zeitgeisty novel you could read' SPECTATOR'One of the finest, bravest writers we have' JUNOT DIAZ'It'll entertain the hell out of you' MOHAMMED HANIF'A novel of loss and moral collapse worthy of Henry James' JOSHUA FERRIS

*WINNER OF A PALESTINE BOOK AWARD*From the award-winning writer and thinker, an essential reckoning with the war in Gaza, its historical conditions, and moral and geopolitical ramifications'Courageous and bracing, learned and ethical, rigorous and mind-expanding' NAOMI KLEIN'Mishra has made a powerful contribution to the moral history of the world' ANDREW O'HAGAN'Urgent' HISHAM MATAR'Brilliant' WILLIAM DALRYMPLEMemory of the Holocaust, the ultimate atrocity of Europe’s civil wars and the paradigmatic genocide, has shaped the Western political and moral imagination in the postwar era. Fears of its recurrence have been routinely invoked to justify Israel’s policies against Palestinians. But for most people around the world – the ‘darker peoples’, in W. E. B. Du Bois’s words – the main historical memory is of the traumatic experiences of slavery and colonialism, and the central event of the twentieth century is decolonisation – freedom from the white man’s world.The World After Gaza takes the war in the Middle East, and the bitterly polarised reaction to it within as well as outside the West, as the starting point for a broad reevaluation of two competing narratives of the last century: the West’s triumphant account of victory over Nazi and communist totalitarianism, and the spread of liberal capitalism, and the global majority's frequently thwarted vision of racial equality. At a moment when the world’s balance of power is shifting and a long-dominant Western minority no longer commands the same authority and credibility, it is critically important to enter the experiences and perspectives of the majority of the world’s population.As old touchstones and landmarks crumble, only a new history with a sharply different emphasis can reorient us to the world and worldviews now emerging into the light. In this concise, powerful and pointed treatise, Mishra reckons with the fundamental questions posed by our present crisis – about whether some lives matter more than others, why identity politics built around memories of suffering is being widely embraced and why racial antagonisms are intensifying amid a far-right surge in the West, threatening a global conflagration. The World After Gaza is an indispensable moral guide to our past, present and future.

Decades of violence and chaos have generated a political and intellectual hysteria-ranging from imperial atavism to paranoia about invading or hectically breeding Muslim hordes-that has affected even the most intelligent in Anglo-America. In Bland Fanatics, Pankaj Mishra examines this hysteria and its fantasists, taking on its arguments and the atmosphere in which it has festered and become influential. In essays that grapple with colonialism, human rights, and the doubling down of liberalism against a background of faltering economies and weakening Anglo-American hegemony, Mishra confronts writers from Jordan Peterson and Niall Ferguson to Salman Rushdie and Ayaan Hirsi Ali. With a newly written introduction, these essays provide a vantage point from which to look seriously at the current crisis.

Examining a range of novelists and critics during the decades of decolonization, the cold war and globalization-from Naipaul to Susan Sontag, Fanon to Edward Said-Pankaj Mishra uncovers two divergent trends: while writers in the global south could not but describe individual fates in their relation to coercive power, political intelligence and literary sensibility became gradually disjunct in Anglo-American fiction and criticism. Modern literature has recorded, from the nineteenth century onwards, the determining influence of ideas and ideology on private experience. But social and political conflict became conspicuous by its absence in much contemporary fiction and literary criticism in the United States and Britain. Literature at the End of History makes clear how impoverished the West's literary culture is as a result-with vanishingly few exceptions-and where the great literature of the world really comes from.

Kashmir is one of the most protracted and bloody occupations in the world-and one of the most ignored. Under an Indian military rule that, at half a million strong, exceeds the total number of US forces in Iraq and Afghanistan, freedom of speech is non-existent, and human- rights abuses and atrocities are routinely visited on its Muslim-majority population. In the last two decades alone, over seventy thousand people have died. Ignored by its own corrupt politicians, abandoned by Pakistan and the West, which refuses to bring pressure to bear on its regional ally, India, the Kashmiri people's ongoing quest for justice and self- determination continues to be brutally suppressed. Exploring the causes and consequences of the occupation, Kashmir: The Case for Freedom is a passionate call for the end of occupation, and for the right of self- determination for the Kashmiri people.

*WINNER OF A PALESTINE BOOK AWARD*From the award-winning writer and thinker, an essential reckoning with the war in Gaza, its historical conditions, and moral and geopolitical ramifications'Courageous and bracing, learned and ethical, rigorous and mind-expanding' NAOMI KLEIN'Mishra has made a powerful contribution to the moral history of the world' ANDREW O'HAGAN'Urgent' HISHAM MATAR'Brilliant' WILLIAM DALRYMPLEMemory of the Holocaust, the ultimate atrocity of Europe’s civil wars and the paradigmatic genocide, has shaped the Western political and moral imagination in the postwar era. Fears of its recurrence have been routinely invoked to justify Israel’s policies against Palestinians. But for most people around the world – the ‘darker peoples’, in W. E. B. Du Bois’s words – the main historical memory is of the traumatic experiences of slavery and colonialism, and the central event of the twentieth century is decolonisation – freedom from the white man’s world.The World After Gaza takes the war in the Middle East, and the bitterly polarised reaction to it within as well as outside the West, as the starting point for a broad reevaluation of two competing narratives of the last century: the West’s triumphant account of victory over Nazi and communist totalitarianism, and the spread of liberal capitalism, and the global majority's frequently thwarted vision of racial equality. At a moment when the world’s balance of power is shifting and a long-dominant Western minority no longer commands the same authority and credibility, it is critically important to enter the experiences and perspectives of the majority of the world’s population.As old touchstones and landmarks crumble, only a new history with a sharply different emphasis can reorient us to the world and worldviews now emerging into the light. In this concise, powerful and pointed treatise, Mishra reckons with the fundamental questions posed by our present crisis – about whether some lives matter more than others, why identity politics built around memories of suffering is being widely embraced and why racial antagonisms are intensifying amid a far-right surge in the West, threatening a global conflagration. The World After Gaza is an indispensable moral guide to our past, present and future.