Pankaj Mishra is a celebrated thinker and essayist writing on politics, literature, and philosophy for many of the world's best papers and magazines.

But it was fiction where he made his name, and, this year, Mishra has returned to that form with his first novel in two decades: Run and Hide.

The book follows the story of Arun, the child of a relatively poor regional family who escapes his upbringing through academic excellence, but rarely seems at peace with his place in the world.

It looks at India's present through its recent past and explores the way we're shaped by our own experience, even when we'd rather set the past aside.