Pankaj Mishra
born in northern India in 1969, has been a regular contributor to the New York Review of Books, the New Yorker and the Guardian for over ten years. He is one of the great intellectuals of modern Asia and has published numerous essays in Lettre International and Cicero. Pankaj Mishra has been a visiting professor at Wellesley College and University College London. He received the Leipzig Book Prize for European Understanding in 2014 for his book Aus den Ruinen des Empires (2013, S.Fischer). He lives alternately in London and in Mashobra, a village on the edge of the Himalayas.
Tessa Szyszkowitz, journalist and author, in conversation with the author,.
How can we explain the origins of the hatred that is sweeping our world - from spree killers to IS to Donald Trump, from vengeful nationalism to racism and misogyny on social media? Pankaj Mishra provides a surprising explanation in his book, which has now been published in German. By first looking back to the 18th century, he shows how even during the process of modernisation, those who did not benefit from it were susceptible to demagogues and always reacted in the same frightening way: with hatred of invented enemies, the evocation of an imaginary golden age and self-empowerment through spectacular violence. Today, as then, mass politics, technology and the pursuit of wealth and individualism are driving millions of people aimlessly into a demoralised world.
The Philoxenia series is curated and moderated by Tessa Szyszkowitz. The journalist writes for profil, Cicero and others from London. Philoxenia is the welcoming culture that was invented not just by Angela Merkel, but by the ancient Greeks. Philoxenia means love for strangers, or hospitality. Even the Hebrews knew: „For by it (hospitality) some have harboured angels without knowing it.“
The event will be held in English!
The German edition of Pankaj Mishra's book DAS ZEITALTER DES ZORNS (translated by Michael Bischoff and Laura Su Bischoff) was published by S. Fischer in summer 2017.
In co-operation with S. Fischer Verlag GmbH