Age of Anger - with Pankaj Mishra and Ian Buruma

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Anger as an incentive in politics seems contemporary but sure is not. Two internationally renowned writers - Pankaj Mishra, who recently published his brilliant new book Age of Anger, and Ian Buruma - recently named editor of acclaimed magazine The New York Review of Books - discussed the subject, moderated by journalist Sheila Sitalsing. English spoken.

Pankaj Mishra is one of the most important writers and intellectuals of our age. He was born in India, lives and works in London and wrote several novels and studies. Age of Anger: A History of the Present is a concise and brilliantly written history of anger as political incentive. Surprising historical parallels show that our age is not unique: the early twentieth century was full of destructive urges, nationalism and terrorism; not a very comforting thought. It is an alarming book: a change of mentality seems necessary to safeguard our freedom, prosperity and stability.

Ian Buruma is a Dutch-British sinologist, japanologist, journalist and writer. In 2017 he was named editor of the internationally acclaimed magazine The New York Review of Books. Since 1985, Buruma contributes to this magazine, as he publishes in among others The New York Times, The Guardian and the NRC Handelsblad newspaper. Buruma has written many books about Asian culture, democracy in crisis, Islamic fundamentalism, and the aftermath of World War II. He is a regular guest and panel host of the Winternachten festival.

A programma curated by Judith Uyterlinde and Ilonka Reintjens (Writers Unlimited). 
Bookselling by Van Stockum Boekverkopers.
In cooperation with Atlas Contact Publishers and OBA.

Information

Date and time Friday 23 June 2017 from 20:30 to 22:00 hrs
Location Podium B - Centrale Bibliotheek Den Haag, Spui 68, 5e etage

Line-up

Ian Buruma

(The Hague, NL, 1951) is a sinologist, japanologist, journalist and writer. Asian culture, democracy, religion, politics, Islamic fundamentalism, and the aftermath of World War II are returning subjects in his vast body of work. His essays have appeared in publications such as The New York Times, The Guardian, NRC and The New York Review of Books. Buruma grew up in The Hague, the child of a British mother and a Dutch father. His book Their Promised Land: My grandparents in times of love and war tells the story of his London-born, German-Jewish grandparents. He has been a professor of democracy, human rights and journalism in New York since 2003. He received the Erasmus Prize in 2008.
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Pankaj Mishra

(India, 1968), one of the most influential writers of fiction and nonfiction of our time, made his international breakthrough with his novel The Romantics, about an Indian student, who in the holy city of Benares is confronted with Western customs and mentality. He reached many readers worldwide with From the Ruins of Empire (2012), a study of the creation and development of an Asean ideology and self-conscience after 1905, losening itself from European colonialism. January 2017 he published Age of Anger: A History of the Present in which Mishra accounts for the resurgence of reactionary and right-wing political movements in the late 2010s. He contributes political and literary essays to the Guardian, the London Review of Books, the New York Review of Books and the New Yorker. He recently published The World After Gaza: A History.
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Sheila Sitalsing

(Suriname, 1968) is a journalist, writer, and economist. She writes books, essays and columns on politics and society. For eleven years, she wrote a widely read column in Dutch national daily newspaper de Volkskrant every other day, for which she was awarded the Heldring Prize for best columnist in the Netherlands. In 2024, she received an honorary doctorate from the University of Humanistic Studies. She wrote the political biography Mark, portret van een premier (2017; Mark, portrait of a prime minister) and compiled her columns about the COVID pandemic year 2020 in Dagboek van een krankzinnig jaar (Diary of a Mad Year). In 2025, her book Waar ik me voor schaam (What I am ashamed of) was published, a non-fictional, perceptive account of a search for the workings of intergenerational shame and totalitarian temptation.
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