Pankaj Mishra

"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 Beach Growing 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 expos 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.

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

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

THE FIRST NOVEL IN TWENTY YEARS BY THE AWARD WINNING AUTHOR OF AGE OF ANGER 'A spectacular, illuminating work of fiction' JENNIFER EGAN'Terrific . . . elegantly written, incisively observed, and deeply satisfying to read' KAMILA SHAMSIE'A book that demands to be read and rewards reading' MOHSIN HAMID_____________________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, someone is about to pay for their many transgressions, but who exactly will it be? Will it be Arun? Will it be Alia, a female writer and influencer, who is piecing together the story of a 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._____________________'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 kept us waiting 20 years for a new novel, and it becomes apparent, as soon as you pick up Run and Hide, that time has honed one of our greatest writing talents. The narrative draws you in more keenly than any boxset and the prose shimmers with wisdom. Marvellous' SATHNAM SANGHERA'A profound, extraordinarily written, and devastating exploration of the ways the personal is always already the political. Unforgettable' NEEL MUKHERJEE'It is the coup de literature our demented age needs from one of the finest, bravest writers we have' JUNOT DIAZ

I Raseriets tidsalder gir Pankaj Mishra en overbevisende og svært tankevekkende fremstilling av den idéhistoriske bakgrunnen for vår tids politiske kriser. Her vises det hvordan opprinnelsen fremveksten av høyreekstreme krefter og den islamistiske radikaliseringen begge kan spores tilbake til europeiske ideer fra blant annet Den franske revolusjonen. Boken viser hvordan Vestens humanistiske prosjekt har spilt fallitt, og dermed gitt grobunn til en global misnøye og ekstremistiske krefter. Den historiske beretningen strekker seg fra opplysningstidens revolusjonære tenkere frem til i dag, og trekker linjer mellom de vestlige demokratienes interne kriser - som klarest kommer til uttrykk gjennom valget av Donald Trump som president i USA og Storbritannias ja til Brexit - og trusselen de islamistiske terrororganisasjonene i dag utgjør. Boken fikk enorm oppmerksomhet i internasjonal presse da den kom ut i fjor, og har blitt en bestselger over hele verden. Den har også høstet bred omtale i norsk presse.

I Raseriets tidsalder gir Pankaj Mishra en overbevisende og svært tankevekkende fremstilling av den idéhistoriske bakgrunnen for vår tids politiske kriser. Her vises det hvordan opprinnelsen fremveksten av høyreekstreme krefter og den islamistiske radikaliseringen begge kan spores tilbake til europeiske ideer fra blant annet Den franske revolusjonen. Boken viser hvordan Vestens humanistiske prosjekt har spilt fallitt, og dermed gitt grobunn til en global misnøye og ekstremistiske krefter. Den historiske beretningen strekker seg fra opplysningstidens revolusjonære tenkere frem til i dag, og trekker linjer mellom de vestlige demokratienes interne kriser - som klarest kommer til uttrykk gjennom valget av Donald Trump som president i USA og Storbritannias ja til Brexit - og trusselen de islamistiske terrororganisasjonene i dag utgjør. Boken fikk enorm oppmerksomhet i internasjonal presse da den kom ut i fjor, og har blitt en bestselger over hele verden. Den har også høstet bred omtale i norsk presse.

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 NPR 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 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.

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 - 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.