Pankaj Mishra – författare

Minnet av Förintelsen, den ultimata grymheten i Tysklands folkmord på judar, har format det västerländska politiska och moraliska medvetandet i efterkrigstiden. Men för en majoritet av världens befolkning, det vill säga en icke-vit befolkning, är slaveriets och kolonialismens trauman i stället 1900-talets centrala och mest avgörande historiska händelse.

I Världen efter Gaza: En kort historik, visar den prisbelönta författaren och tänkaren Pankaj Mishra hur minnet av Förintelsen förskjutits sedan sent 60-tal till att, av främst USA och Israel, anses vara en enskild berättelse om antisemitism, snarare än en följd av den moderna historiens rasistiska expansionism. Denna förskjutning, menar Mishra, ligger till grund för dagens krig i Mellanöstern och de bittert polariserade reaktionerna på det, inom och utanför västvärlden.

Mishra som själv vuxit upp i det mångkulturella Indien tar i denna kraftfulla skrift itu med de grundläggande frågorna för vår samtid: De historiska exemplen talar för att minnet av smärta i sin tur kan legitimera förtryck. Är vissa liv då mer värda än andra?

Världen efter Gaza ger oss en oumbärlig vägledning för att förstå vårt förflutna, vår nutid och vår framtid. Det är en viktig uppgörelse med kriget i Gaza, med dess historiska omständigheter och med dess moraliska och geopolitiska innebörd.

PANKAJ MISHRA, född 1969 i norra Indien, är en välrenommerad författare, tänkare och essäist. Våren 2024 tog hans artikel som publicerades i LRB, The Shoah after Gaza , världen med storm. Han är ledamot i brittiska Royal Society of Literature och bor numera i London. 

"Han skriver mycket bra och språket har föredömligt flyt. (...) läsvärd, inte minst eftersom den erbjuder ett perspektiv präglat av öppenhet och ärlighet. Mishra har en grundläggande respekt för båda sidor i konflikten" BTJ, Mats K.G. Johansson

Pankaj Mishra's From the Ruins of Empire offers a surprising, gripping narrative depicting the thinkers whose ideas shaped contemporary China, India, and the Muslim world.A little more than a century ago, independent thinkers across Asia sought to frame a distinct intellectual tradition that would inspire the continent's rise to dominance. Yet this did not come to pass, and today those thinkers—Tagore, Gandhi, and later Nehru in India; Liang Qichao and Sun Yat-sen in China; Jamal al-Din al-Afghani and Abdurreshi al Ibrahim of the Ottoman Empire—are seen as outsiders within the main anticolonial tradition. But as Mishra demonstrates in this enthralling portrait of like minds, Asia's revolt against the West is not the one led by faith-fired terrorists and thwarted peasants; rather, it is rooted in the ideas of these once renowned intellectuals. Now, when the ascendency of Asia seems possible as never before, From the Ruins of Empire is as necessary as it is timely—a book indispensable to our understanding of the world and our place in it.

One of our most important public intellectuals reveals the hidden history of our current global crisis.Longlisted for the Orwell Prize A New York Times Notable Book of 2017Named a Best Book of the Year by Slate and NPRHow 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 Donald 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 enjoy its promises—of 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: with 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 nineteenth 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 wide embrace of mass politics and technology and the pursuit of wealth and individualism have cast many more billions adrift in a demoralized world, uprooted from tradition but still far from modernity—with the same terrible results.Making 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 transforms a visceral, intimate story of one man’s humble origins into a kaleidoscopic portrait of a society bedazzled by power and wealth—what it means on a human level, and what it costs. Run and Hide is a spectacular, illuminating work of fiction.” —Jennifer Egan, author of Manhattan BeachGrowing up in a small railway town, Arun always dreamed of escape. His acceptance to the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology, enabled through great sacrifice by his low-caste parents, is seemingly his golden ticket out of a life plagued by everyday cruelties and deprivations.At the predominantly male campus, he meets two students from similar backgrounds. Unlike Arun—scarred by his childhood, and an uneasy interloper among go-getters—they possess the sheer will and confidence to break through merciless social barriers. The alumni of IIT eventually go on to become the financial wizards of their generation, working hard and playing hard from East Hampton to Tuscany—the beneficiaries of unprecedented financial and sexual freedom. But while his friends play out Gatsby-style fantasies, Arun fails to leverage his elite education for social capital. He decides to pursue the writerly life, retreating to a small village in the Himalayas with his aging mother.Arun’s modest idyll is one day disrupted by the arrival of a young woman named Alia, who is writing an exposé of his former classmates. Alia, beautiful and sophisticated, draws Arun back to the prospering world where he must be someone else if he is to belong. When he is implicated in a terrible act of violence committed by his closest friend from IIT, Arun will have to reckon with the person he has become.Run and Hide is Pankaj Mishra’s powerful story of achieving material progress at great moral and emotional cost. It is also the story of a changing country and global order, and the inequities of class and gender that map onto our most intimate relationships.

Brought to you by Penguin. Arun knows there is only way out of this small railway town. He is about to enrol in the prestigious Indian Institute of Technology, determined to make something of himself. But once there, he meets two friends who are prepared to go to unimaginable lengths to succeed.In just a few years, Arun''s friends become the success stories of their generation. In private planes and expensive cars, from New York to Tuscany, they play out their Gatsby-style fantasies.In reality, these men are about to pay for their transgressions, but who exactly will pay the price? Will it be Arun? 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; it is a story for our times.''Terrific . . . elegantly written, incisively observed, and deeply satisfying to read'' Kamila Shamsie''A book that demands to be read and rewards reading'' Mohsin Hamid''Pankaj Mishra returns to fiction after two decades with a gripping and remarkable novel - his best work yet. It captures the trajectory of our time through insights and moments that are startling, pure, and have a strange inevitability'' Amit Chaudhuri© Pankaj Mishra 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022