Pankaj Mishra Biography and latest books by Pankaj Mishra

Pankaj Mishra is a novelist, essayist, literary critic, lecturer, and reporter all rolled into one. He has been writing on topics as diverse as globalization, the Dalai Lama, Bollywood, and the ‘Talibanization’ of South Asia. He is known for his book Butter Chicken in Ludhiana, which is a sociological study of small-town India.

Pankaj was born in 1969 in Jhansi, Uttar Pradesh. He graduated with a Bachelor\'s Degree (Commerce) from Allahabad University before doing a Masters in English literature at the reputed Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He was the Visiting Fellow for 2007-2008 at the Department of English, University College London, UK. As a child, he detested formal schooling and hence he chose to be home schooled for a few years. However, he loved college since it allowed him to do what he loved most: reading.

In 1992, Pankaj took a rather courageous step of moving base to Mashobra, a Himalayan village, where he started his literary career by writing literary essays and reviews to The Indian Review of Books, The India Magazine, and the newspaper The Pioneer. In an interview Pankaj has stated how during this time he enriched his writing skills by reading a novel a day and wrote enough to earn a meager living.  

His first book, Butter Chicken in Ludhiana: Travels in Small Town India (1995), was also written during this phase of his life. He then penned a novel - The Romantics (2000) – which happens to be an ironic tale of people longing to seek happiness in cultures other than their own. The Romantics was published in 11 European languages and won the Los Angeles Times Art Seidenbaum award for first fiction. His next - An End to Suffering: The Buddha in the World (2004) is a combination of a memoir, history, and philosophy while concentrating on how relevant Buddha\'s teachings are today. Temptations of the West: How to be Modern in India, Pakistan and Beyond (2006), uses Mishra\'s travels through Kashmir, Bollywood, Afghanistan, Tibet, Nepal, and other parts of South and Central Asia and puts it into perspective.

Along with this Mishra has written several literary and political essays for The New York Times, The New York Review of Books, The Guardian, and New Statesman, among other American, British, and Indian publications. He lives in London and India, and is presently working on a novel.