Pankaj Mishra Books

The book offers a critical examination of the Gaza conflict, linking it to broader historical narratives of trauma and oppression, particularly the Holocaust and colonialism. It contrasts Western triumphalism with the experiences of marginalized communities, highlighting the significance of decolonization and racial equality. As global power dynamics shift, the author argues for a reevaluation of prevailing historical perspectives to address pressing questions about identity, suffering, and rising racial tensions. This work serves as a moral guide for understanding the complexities of our contemporary world.

"Since 'Thriller' and the widely acclaimed 'Orlando', writer-director Sally Potter has been known as a pioneer filmmaker. [... YES is] easily her masterpiece to date. The central action, set in contemporary London, involves a successful scientist locked in a passionless marriage and conducting an intensely sexual affair with a Lebanese immigrant worker. But this sturdy dramatic situation is only the beginning."--Publisher's description. Includes both the finished screenplay and the original short film script it was based on, as well as photos, credits, and a question-and-answer session with Sally Potter and actress Joan Allen

A surprising, gripping narrative depicting the thinkers whose ideas shaped contemporary China, India, and the Muslim world.

Old, new; rich, poor; rural, urban; Brahmin, Dalit; Hindu, Muslim - India is a country of contrasts, and Temptations of the West explores this diversity in all its forms. From the empty corridors of a grand but guestless western-style hotel to improvised shacks clustered along muddy roadsides; from the polite efficiency of stewards on board one of India's private airlines to overpopulated tenements and one-roomed school buildings where no teachers ever set foot; from sites of religious worship to those of mass burial; from road blocks to voting booths - as Mishra's travels take him from one part of India to another, and then beyond, to Pakistan and Afghanistan, he paints a clear and often alarming picture of disarray and disorder. All too often, superficial changes seem simply to paper over the cracks, and beneath modern facades, the old tensions still exist.

The Siege of Krishnapur is a modern classic of narrative excitement that also digs deep to explore some fundamental questions of civilisation and life.

One of the most acclaimed essayists writing today on the political hysteria plaguing the West

"How 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 - reacted in horrifyingly similar ways- intense hatred of invented enemies, attempts to re-create an imaginary golden age, and self-empowerment through spectacular violence. Today, just as then, the wider embrace of mass politics, technology, and the pursuit of wealth and individualism has cast many more billions adrift in a literally demoralized world, uprooted from tradition but still far from modernity - with the same terrible results. Making startling connections and comparisons, Age of Angeris a history of our present predicament unlike any other."

Samar, a young man of limited means, moves to Benares, the ancient city of learning, to lose himself in the world of books. There he meets Rajesh, a poor student, and Catherine, a young French woman, who shows him a very different side of his own country--and self. A resonant and ambitious novel, The Romantics is both the story of a sentimental education and of the widening fault lines within contemporary India.

Charting half a lifetime spent exploring the written word, these eleven articles include Naipaul’s boyhood experiences of reading books and his first youthful efforts at writing them; the evolution of his ideas about the extent to which individual cultures shape identities and influence literary forms; Naipaul’s observations on Conrad, his literary forebear; the moving preface he wrote to the only book his father ever published; and his reflections on his career, ending with his celebrated Nobel lecture ‘Two Worlds’. A remarkable companion piece to The Writer and the World, Naipaul’s previous volume of highly-acclaimed essays, Literary Occasions is a stirring contribution to the fading art of the critic, and a revelation of a life in letters.

Urgent, profound and extraordinarily timely John Banville