I don't think of myself as particularly earnest. I have long bouts of cynicism and skepticism. So much of my early life was full of uncertainties. It still is. My "Buddha book" expresses that. Perhaps that's what created this impression of earnestness.
Pankaj MishraI think the reporter or journalist is well served by having a responsibility to the powerless, to use a much-abused clichรฉ. The voice of the powerless is in some danger of not being heard in the elite discourses we now have in the mainstream media.
Pankaj MishraThere are some serious limitations in Mo Yan's situation as a writer in China today - just as there are for Jia Zhangke, one of the world's greatest film directors. He can only phrase his dissent obliquely, in his art. Writers in "free" societies labor under no such constraints. They can write more or less whatever they want in both their fiction and their commentary. Yet so many of them look oddly inhibited, even timid, and depressingly a couple of prominent figures actually positioned themselves to the right of their governments, intelligence agencies, and corporations.
Pankaj MishraThe asymmetries of power that have shaped relations between the West and the rest of the world also exist in the realm of literary criticism.
Pankaj Mishra