Ian Buruma (born 28 December 1951) is a Dutch writer and editor who lives and works in the United States. In 2017, he became editor of The New York Review of Books, but left the position in September 2018.
Much of his writing has focused on the culture of Asia, particularly that of China and 20th-century Japan. He was the Paul W. Williams Professor of Human Rights and Journalism at Bard College from 2003 to 2017.
Early life and education
Buruma was born and raised in
The Hague. His father, Sytze Leonard "Leo" Buruma, was a Dutch lawyer and son of a
Mennonites minister; his mother, Gwendolyn Margaret "Wendy" Schlesinger, was a
British people of German-Jewish descent.
He went to study at Leiden University in 1971, and obtained a Candidate degree in Chinese literature and history in 1975. He subsequently pursued postgraduate studies in Japanese cinema from 1975 to 1977 at the College of Art (Nichidai Geijutsu Gakko) of the
Nihon University in Tokyo, Japan.
Career
Overview
Buruma worked as a film reviewer, photographer, and documentary filmmaker in Japan between 1975 and 1981. During the 1980s, he edited the cultural section of the
Far Eastern Economic Review in
Hong Kong. He later traveled throughout Asia working as a freelance writer. Buruma is a board member of Human Rights in China and a fellow of the European Council of Foreign Relations. Buruma has contributed numerous articles to
The New York Review of Books since 1985
[Peter Collier. , World Affairs Journal] and has written for
The Guardian.
He held fellowships at the Wissenschaftskolleg in
Berlin (1991) and the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, D.C. (1999), and he was an
Alistair Horne fellow of St Antony's College in
Oxford. In 2000, he delivered the
Huizinga Lecture (on "
Neoromanticism of writers in exile") in the Pieterskerk in Leiden, Netherlands.
From 2003 to 2017, Buruma was Luce Professor of Democracy, Human Rights and Journalism at Bard College in New York City, New York. In 2017, he became editor of The New York Review of Books ( NYRB), succeeding founding editor Robert B. Silvers.[Schuessler, Jennifer. "Ian Buruma Named Editor of The New York Review of Books", The New York Times, May 18, 2017.][ "Contents: Contributors", New York Review of Books, August 17, 2017, Vol. 64, No. 13.]
He has been a regular contributor to Project Syndicate since 2001.
New York Review of Books controversy
In September 2018, Buruma left the
NYRB position following a dispute about his publication of an essay by
Canadians talk show host
Jian Ghomeshi. Ghomeshi was acquitted in 2016 of one count of choking and four counts of sexual assault after over 20 women complained either to the police or in the media. The publication of the essay was controversial, in part, because Ghomeshi wrote that the allegations against him were "inaccurate".
In an interview with
Slate magazine, Buruma defended his decision to publish the piece. He denied that the article was misleading because it had failed to mention that Ghomeshi had been required to issue an apology to one of the victims as part of the terms of a case against him, in which he was acquitted. He also denied that the title, "Reflections from a Hashtag", was dismissive of the
MeToo movement; stated that the movement has resulted in "undesirable consequences"; and said: "I'm no judge of the rights and wrongs of every allegation. ... The exact nature of Ghomeshi's behavior – how much consent was involved – I have no idea, nor is it really my concern."
[Chotiner, Isaac. "Why Did the New York Review of Books Publish That Jian Ghomeshi Essay?", Slate, September 14, 2018.]
In response to outrage over his defense of the article,[Pilkington, Ed. " New York Review of Books editor Ian Buruma departs amid outrage over essay", The Guardian, September 19, 2018.][Vanderhoof, Erin. "How Ian Buruma's New York Review of Books Ouster Became Inevitable", Vanity Fair, September 19, 2018][O'Rourke, Meghan. "What Magazines Can't Do in the Age of #MeToo", The Atlantic, September 21, 2018.] the Review leadership later stated that it had departed from its "usual editorial practices" as the essay "was shown to only one male editor during the editing process", and that Buruma's statement to Slate about the staff of the Review "did not accurately represent their views".[Williams, John. " New York Review of Books Acknowledges 'Failures' in a #MeToo Essay", The New York Times, September 24, 2018.] More than 100 contributors to the Review, including Joyce Carol Oates and Ian McEwan, signed a letter of protest to express fears that Buruma's exit threatened intellectual culture and "the free exploration of ideas".[Laura Kipnis, "The Perils of Publishing in a #MeToo Moment", The New York Times, September 25, 2018. Retrieved November 26, 2018.][David Taylor, "How one article capsized a New York literary institution", The Guardian, September 26, 2018. Retrieved November 26, 2018.][Ed Pilkington, "Acclaimed authors pen letter in protest at 'forced resignation' of Ian Buruma", The Guardian, September 26, 2018. Retrieved November 26, 2018.][Conor Friedersdorf "The Journalistic Implications of Ian Buruma's Resignation", The Atlantic, September 25, 2018. Retrieved January 15, 2019.]
Awards
In 2004, Buruma was awarded an Honorary Doctorate (Dr.h.c.) in
Theology from the University of Groningen.
In 2008, Buruma was awarded the Erasmus Prize, which is awarded to an individual who has made "an especially important contribution to culture, society or social science in Europe".[ "The FP Top 100 Global Thinkers", Foreign Policy, 29 November 2010.]
Buruma has won several prizes for his books, including the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and the PEN/Diamonstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay for Theater of Cruelty.
Personal life and views
Buruma has been married twice. He and his first wife, Sumie Tani, had a daughter, as did he and his second wife, Eri Hotta.
Buruma is a nephew of the English film director
John Schlesinger, with whom he published a series of interviews in book form.
He argued in 2001 for wholehearted British participation in the European Union because they were the "strongest champions in Europe of a liberal approach to commerce and politics".
Bibliography
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Tokyo: Form and Spirit (1986) with James Brandon, Kenneth Frampton, Martin Friedman, Donald Richie
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God's Dust: A Modern Asian Journey (1989)
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Great Cities of the World: Hong Kong (1991)
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Playing the Game (1991) novel
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The Wages of Guilt: Memories of War in Germany and in Japan (1994)
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Introduction for Geisha: The Life, the Voices, the Art (1998) by Jodi Cobb
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Voltaire's Coconuts, or Anglomania in Europe (UK title) (1998) or Anglomania: A European Love Affair (US title) (1998)
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The Pilgrimage from Tiananmen Square, The New York Times (1999)
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The Missionary and the Libertine: Love and War in East and West (2000) compilation
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De neo-romantiek van schrijvers in exil ("Neoromanticism of writers in exile") (2000)
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(2001)
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Inventing Japan: From Empire to Economic Miracle 1853–1964 (2003)
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Occidentalism: The West in the Eyes of Its Enemies (2004) with Avishai Margalit
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Murder in Amsterdam: The Death of Theo Van Gogh and the Limits of Tolerance (2006) winner of The Los Angeles Times Book Prize for the Best Current Interest Book.
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Conversations with John Schlesinger (2006)
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Commentary on the History of China for the time period of The Last Emperor, The Criterion Collection 2008 DVDs (ASIN: B000ZM1MIW, ).
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The China Lover (2008) novel
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China's class ceiling, published in the Los Angeles Times
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Taming the Gods: Religion and Democracy on Three Continents (2010) , with some historical examples of the value the separation of religion and governance with the separation of church and state as one example.
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Grenzen aan de vrijheid: van De Sade tot Wilders ( Limits to Freedom: From De Sade to Geert Wilders) (2010) – Essay for the Month of Philosophy in the Netherlands.
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"The Man Who Got It Right", The New York Review of Books (2013)
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Theater of Cruelty: Art, Film, and the Shadows of War (2014)
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[Title in the online table of contents is "Why 'The Tale of Genji' Is Still Seductive".]
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Their Promised Land: My Grandparents in Love and War (2016)
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[Online version is titled "Are China and the United States Headed for War?".]
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The Collaborators: Three Stories of Deception and Survival in World War II, Penguin Random House, 2023.
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[Online version is titled "What the Tokyo Trial Reveals about Empire, Memory, and Judgment".]
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Spinoza: Freedom's Messiah, Yale University Press, 2024.
Notes
External links
- Interviews
