Most of what I read is for reviewing purposes or related to something I want to write about. It's slightly utilitarian. I definitely miss that sense of being a disinterested reader who's reading purely for the pleasure of imagining his way into emotional situations and vividly realized scenes in nineteenth-century France or late nineteenth-century Russia.
Pankaj MishraThere is a lot of anxiety in India about writers selling out to foreign audiences, but Iām neither flattering the Indian audience nor the American audience. Iām uneasily somewhere in the middle.
Pankaj MishraMost writers have very little that's important or valuable to offer; most of them are just repeating each other.
Pankaj MishraIn India, love often follows marriage. I know many people who are still very deeply in love with their wives, who they barely knew before they were married. In America there's this idea that "how could someone get married without being deeply in love with each other?" but in a lot of these cases feelings of love and affection actually grow after they've been legally and formally brought together.
Pankaj Mishra