Ian Buruma was educated in Holland and Japan. He is a journalist, writer, and academic. He has spent many years in Asia, which he has written about in God’s Dust, A Japanese Mirror,  Behind the Mask, Inventing Japan and his novel, The China Lover. He has also written Playing the Game, The Wages of Guilt, Anglomania, Taming the Gods: Religion and Democracy on Three Continents,  Year Zero: A History of 1945 and his latest book is The Theater of Cruelty: Art, Film, and the Shadows of War.  He was voted as one of the Top 100 Public Intellectuals by the Foreign Policy/Prospect magazines in 2008, and in 2010.

Buruma is the Paul W. Williams Professor of Human Rights and Journalism at Bard College. He writes about politics and culture for a variety of major publications.