Pankaj Mishra

Pankaj Mishra (born 1969) is one of the most important public intellectuals writing in English, and his work — a combination of literary criticism, political philosophy, and historical analysis — has reshaped how Western readers understand the intellectual history of Asia. His books trace the ideas that have driven Asian responses to Western modernity, from the Meiji Restoration to the rise of Hindu nationalism, with a combination of erudition and moral passion that makes him one of the few writers who can move between the worlds of literary fiction, political journalism, and academic historiography.

Life and Career

Mishra was born in Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh, India, and grew up in small towns across North India. He studied commerce at Allahabad University and later settled in Mashobra, a small town in the Himalayas, where he read voraciously in philosophy, literature, and history. His literary career began with essays and reviews for Indian publications and for the New York Review of Books and the London Review of Books, where he became a regular contributor.

Butter Chicken in Ludhiana: Travels in Small Town India (1995) was a travel book that captured the transformations of small-town India in the early liberalization era. The Romantics (2000) — his only novel — follows a young Indian man in Benares (Varanasi) who is drawn into the orbit of Western seekers and Indian intellectuals, navigating between the allure of Western modernity and the pull of Indian tradition.

An End to Suffering: The Buddha in the World (2004) is part memoir, part intellectual history: an account of the Buddha’s thought and its relevance to contemporary politics, woven together with Mishra’s own spiritual journey. Temptations of the West: How to Be Modern in India, Pakistan, Tibet, and Beyond (2006) collected his journalism from across South and Central Asia.

From the Ruins of Empire: The Intellectuals Who Remade Asia (2012) — his most important book — traces the intellectual responses of Asian thinkers (Jamal al-Din al-Afghani, Liang Qichao, Rabindranath Tagore) to Western imperialism. Age of Anger: A History of the Present (2017) extended this analysis, arguing that the global rise of populist rage — from ISIS to Trump — has roots in a two-century-old crisis of modernity first identified by Rousseau and Herder.

Key Works

• The Romantics (2000)
• From the Ruins of Empire (2012)
• Age of Anger (2017)

Collecting Mishra

Butter Chicken in Ludhiana first edition (Penguin India, 1995) — debut — is scarce outside India. The Romantics first edition (Picador, 2000) signed brings $40–$100. English first editions vary between Indian, UK, and US publishers. Mishra signs at literary festivals. His nonfiction titles are more widely collected than his fiction; Age of Anger first edition (FSG/Allen Lane, 2017) is the most commercially available.