About this item
"A knowledgeable journalist astutely delineates a troubling global move toward the right wing."--Kirkus Reviews What happens when a democratically elected leader evolves into an authoritarian ruler, limiting press freedom, civil liberties, and religious and ethnic tolerance? India and Turkey are two of the world's biggest democracies--multi-ethnic nations that rose from their imperial past to be founded on the values of modernity. They have fair elections, open markets, and freedom of religion. Yet this is an account of how the charismatic strongmen Narendra Modi, in India, and Recep Tyyip Erodgan, in Turkey, used the power they had won as elected heads of state to push their countries toward authoritarian ways. Journalist Basharat Peer knows only too well how the tyranny of the majority can exact a terrible human toll; it's a story he told in Curfewed Night, his memoir of growing up in war-torn Kashmir.
About the Author
BASHARAT PEER was born in Kashmir in 1977. He studied journalism and politics at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. He has worked as an editor at Foreign Affairs and served as a correspondent at Tehelka, India's leading English language weekly. His work has appeared in The Guardian, New Statesman, The Nation, Financial Times Magazine, N+1, and Columbia Journalism Review, among other publications. Curfewed Night, his first book, won one of India's top literary awards, the Vodafone Crossword Book Award for English Non Fiction. Peer is a Fellow at Open Society Institute and lives in New York.
