The Writers’ Trust of Canada has announced that Indian essayist and memoirist Pankaj Mishra is the winner of the 2024 Weston International Award.

The $75,000 award honours an international author for their career achievement in literary nonfiction.

Mishra, who has published eight books of nonfiction, including Age of Anger: A History of the Present and From the Ruins of Empire: The Revolt Against the West and the Remaking of Asia, was born in northwest India and lives in London and Mashobra, India. He is an award-winning writer and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature.

In their citation, the jury credited Mishra as a writer well-suited to the current time.

“The best nonfiction is both a window and a mirror. It exposes, reflects, and filters light. Mishra is a writer for and of this difficult and complex world we are creating,” the jury wrote. “Through a compelling and essential body of work that braids memoir, philosophy, history, sociology, and criticism, Mishra proves he is a master of disassembling and uplifting magmatic argument and pressing issues of identity, nationalism, and belonging. Speaking to a time when democracy itself is at stake, he is a light cutting through shadow.”

An international advisory committee chooses an non-publicized longlist of writers, and a Canadian jury reads the works of the longlisted authors to determine a winner. The international advisory committee for this year’s award was comprised of U.K. broadcaster and columnist Mariella Frostrup, novelist Pico Iyer, and novelist and former New York Times Book Review editor Sam Tanenhaus. The Canadian jury was comprised of naturalist and author Trevor Herriot, writer Helen Humphreys, author and environmental historian Jessica J. Lee, nonfiction and children’s author Kyo Maclear, and author and magazine editor Harley Rustad.

An event in Toronto on Sept. 16 will honour Mishra and his work. Details and tickets are available from the Writers’ Trust.

Mishra is the second winner of the award, which was launched in 2023. British writer Robert Macfarlane was the prize’s inaugural winner.