Evil Empire 77Empire’s Racketeers
Pankaj Mishra interviewed by Wajahat Ali
pankaj mishra does not suffer fools. Born and raised in North India,
the forty-eight-year-old writer was expected to join the civil service after
graduating from university; instead he moved to a small village in the
Himalayas for five years and wrote literary reviews for the Indian press.
In 1995 he published his first book, a travelogue populated by colorful
and diverse characters living at the intersection of globalization and
Indian tradition. Since then, he has turned out numerous essays, edited
an anthology, and published a novel and five books of nonfiction, using
his incisive pen to expose the devastating consequences of Western
imperialism, globalization, and capitalism.
Five years ago I interviewed Mishra in these pages to discuss his
book From the Ruins of Empire (2012), which crafted an epic narrative
of Middle Eastern and Asian communities seeking empowerment after
centuries of European colonization. Mishra has since turned his focus
to the origins of modern reactionary forces—from the Islamic State to
Brexit and the presidency of Donald Trump. Longlisted for the Orwell
Prize, his latest book, Age of Anger (2017), seeks to explain why millions