Pankaj Mishra

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Pankaj Mishra - Acceptance speech on the occasion of the award of the Leipzig Book Prize for European Understanding 2014

Pankaj Mishra (* 1969 in Jhansi ) is an Indian essayist , literary critic and writer . He became internationally known with his non-fiction book Butter Chicken in Ludhiana , a sociological study of small-town India, and as an essayist for The New York Review of Books . Mishra publishes primarily in English .

biography

Shimla, Christ Church on the right

Pankaj Mishra was born in 1969 in Jhansi , a city in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh . He discovered his love for writing as a seventeen-year-old student, three novels from that period remain unpublished. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in economics from the University of Allahabad (state of Uttar Pradesh) before obtaining a Master of Arts in English literature from Jawarharlal Nehru University in New Delhi .

After completing his studies, Pankaj Mishra moved to Mashobra , a small town in the Shimla district in the northern Indian state of Himachal Pradesh , at 2500  m above sea level in 1992 . M. on the southern foothills of the Himalayas and on the border with Tibet .

Mishra was visiting professor at Wellesley College in 2001, 2004 and 2006 , and in 2004/5 he received a scholarship from the New York Public Library for his work at the Cullmen Center for Writers and Scholars . Mishra was a visiting professor in the Faculty of English Literature at University College London in 2007/8 . He lives in London and India.

Work as a writer and essayist

Short stories and non-fiction books

At Mashobra, he began writing essays and reviews for The Indian Review of Books , The India Magazine, and the pioneer newspaper .

In 1995 his non-fiction book Butter Chicken was published in Ludhiana: Travels in Small Town India , a travelogue that describes the social and cultural changes in India in the context of advancing globalization . A revised edition was published by Picador Publishing in the United Kingdom and India in late summer 2006.

While looking for an agent, Arundhati Roy met Pankaj Mishra, who worked as a publisher for HarperCollins . Enthusiastic about her novel The God of Little Things , he sent the manuscript to three British publishers in June 1996 with the comment "This is the biggest book since Midnight's Children " .

The Romantics (Die Romantischen, 2000), is a novel and an ironic description from the protagonist's point of view, seeking the fulfillment of personal longings in cultures other than his own. Mishra's admiration for Edward Morgan Forsters A trip to India cannot be overlooked. Autobiographical references to his own early years are probably not accidental; the protagonist comes from North India, is Brahmin and studied in Allahabad. The Romantic has so far been published in eleven European languages ​​and won the Art Seidenbaum Award of the Los Angeles Times for a first work.

His book An End to Suffering: The Buddha in the World , published in 2004, mixes memories, history, philosophy and tries to fathom Buddha's relevance for life in the modern world. Like previous works, it was included in the New York Times' 100 Best Books of the Year . The following year Mishra published an anthology on writing in India called India in Mind .

In Temptations of the West: How to be Modern in India, Pakistan and Beyond (2006), Mishra describes journeys through Kashmir , Afghanistan , Tibet , Nepal and other parts of South and Central Asia .

Short stories by the Indian author have been published in various edited volumes, including The Picador Book of Journeys (2000), Away: The Indian Writer as Expatriate (2003) and The Vintage Book of Modern Indian Literature (2004).

Pankaj Mishra has also re-edited works by well-known authors: Mahatma Gandhi's The Story of My Experiments with Truth , Rudyard Kipling's Roman Kim (2004), James Gordon Farrell's Empire Trilogy The Siege of Krishnapur (2004) and EM Forster's Journey to India (2005) . In 2002/3 he wrote the foreword to the two volumes of Sir Vidiadhar Surajprasad Naipaul's essays The Writer and the World and Literary Occasions .

Essays and columns

Mishra writes literary and political essays and columns, etc. a. for The New York Times , The New York Review of Books , The Guardian , for New Statesman and English-language Indian publications.

In an article published in the London Review of Books in July 2020, Mishra offers a sweeping sociopolitical analysis of why the US and UK governments have failed to cope with the COVID-19 pandemic and shows what insights follow from this.

Political activity

Mishra's writings relating to Hinduism as a religion and its importance for the modern history of the Indian independence movement (he is a Hindu and an Indian citizen), such as the right-wing, Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) , have received much attention from the Indian public found and led to some unrest (February 2008). Critics from these circles accuse him of writing for “white pro-Muslim audiences in the West” , to which Mishra replied with “this notion is“ optimistic ”, even before the September 11 attacks ” .

Awards

Pankaj Mishra will give the acceptance speech in the Gewandhaus Leipzig on March 12, 2014 after he was awarded the Leipzig Book Prize for European Understanding .

Works

  • The story of my experiments with the truth from Mahatma Gandhi . Beacon Press, Boston, Mass. 1993, ISBN 0-8070-5909-9 (Original title: Gandhi An Autobiography: The Story of My Experiments with Truth , reworked by Pankaj Mishra).
  • Butter Chicken in Ludhiana: Travels in Small Town India . Penguin Books , 1995, ISBN 0-14-025067-0 .
  • The Picador Book of Journeys . Picador, London 2000, ISBN 0-330-44412-3 (anthology of short stories).
  • The Romantics . Random House , New York 2000, ISBN 0-375-50274-2 (Original title: The Romantics , first edition).
  • Benares or an education of the heart . Blessing, 2001, ISBN 3-89667-133-2 (Original title: The Romantics ).
  • The Vintage Book of Modern Indian Literature . Vintage, New York 2002, ISBN 0-375-71300-X (anthology of short stories).
  • The Writer and the World and Literary Occasions by VS Naipaul . AA Knopf, New York 2002, ISBN 0-375-40739-1 (preface by Pankaj Mishra).
  • Away: The Indian Writer as Expatriate . Routledge, New York 2003, ISBN 0-415-96896-8 (anthology of short stories).
  • Kim, from Rudyard Kipling . Random House Modern Library, 2004 (revised and with a foreword by Pankaj Mishra).
  • The Siege of Krishnapur, by JG Farrell . NYRB Books, New York 2004 (preface by Pankaj Mishra).
  • A trip to India by EM Forster . Penguin Classics, 2005 (original title: A Passage to India , reworked by Pankaj Mishra).
  • On the way to the Buddha: his life, his teaching, his effect . Blessing, 2005, ISBN 3-89667-134-0 (Original title: An End to Suffering ).
  • India in Mind . Random House, Vintage Departures Original, New York 2005, ISBN 0-375-72745-0 (Original title: India in mind: an anthology / edited with an introduction by Pankaj Mishra ).
  • Temptations of the West: How to Be Modern in India, Pakistan, Tibet, and Beyond . Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York 2006, ISBN 0-374-17321-4 .
  • The romantic ones . Suhrkamp Pocket Book, Frankfurt a. M. 2008, ISBN 3-518-45934-1 (Original title: The romantics ).
  • Call of the West. Modern India . Berenberg Verlag, Berlin 2011, ISBN 978-3-937834-49-8 (Contains a selection of essays from: Temptations of the West: How to be Modern in India, Pakistan and Beyond ).
  • From the Ruins of Empire. The Intellectuals who Remade Asia . Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York City 2012, ISBN 978-0-374-24959-5 .
  • From the ruins of the empire: the revolt against the west and the resurgence of Asia . S. Fischer, Frankfurt a. M. 2013, ISBN 978-3-10-048838-1 .
  • Encounters with China and its neighbors: Malaysia - Hong Kong - Indonesia - Taiwan - Mongolia - Tibet - Japan - India . S. Fischer, Frankfurt a. M. 2015. ISBN 978-3100022738 .
  • The age of anger. A story of the present . S. Fischer, Frankfurt a. M. 2017. ISBN 978-3-10-397265-8 .

Essays

  • Europe must shine again! Frankfurter Allgemeine Sonntagszeitung from September 14, 2014, p. 40

Interviews

Web links

Commons : Pankaj Mishra  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Thomas Meaney: Empire States (Reviews, English, PDF document) Retrieved June 20, 2014
  2. ↑ Pankaj Mishra and Mashobra (English)
  3. ↑ Website dedicated to Pankaj Mishra ( Memento of December 17, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) (English)
  4. ↑ Website the pioneer (English)
  5. ↑ Rediff On The NeT: Vir Sanghri meets Arundhati Roy (English)
  6. ^ The New York Times Books: Sentimental Education, Feb.27, 2000
  7. ^ Los Angeles Times website, Book Prizes
  8. ↑ List of the essays by Pankaj Mishra ( Memento of December 3, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) (English)
  9. ↑ Pankaj Mishra: Flailing States Pankaj Mishra on Anglo-America . In: London Review of Books . tape 42 , no. July 14 , 16, 2020 ( lrb.co.uk [accessed July 14, 2020]).
  10. ↑ Article Temptations of the West , The New Yorker, July 3, 2006 (English)
  11. ↑ LA Times Book Price Winners 2000 . Archived from the original on July 4, 2011. Info: The archive link was automatically inserted and not yet checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. Retrieved December 17, 2013. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / events.latimes.com
  12. ↑ Popular choice ruled at book awards . In: Times of India . Retrieved December 17, 2013.
  13. ↑ Speech given at the opening of the Berlin International Literature Festival . [1] fazarchiv
personal data
SURNAME Mishra, Pankaj
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Indian writer and columnist
DATE OF BIRTH 1969
PLACE OF BIRTH Jhansi