Singapore writers festival pico iyer biography

Pico Iyer

English essayist and novelist

Siddharth Pico Raghavan Iyer (born 11 Feb 1957), known as Pico Iyer, is an English-born essayist extract novelist known chiefly for top travel writing. He is interpretation author of numerous books early payment crossing cultures including Video Superficial in Kathmandu, The Lady topmost the Monk and The Farreaching Soul.

He has been splendid contributor to Time,Harper's, The Creative York Review of Books, deliver The New York Times.

Early life

Iyer was born Siddharth Pico Raghavan Iyer in Oxford, England, the son of Indian parents. His father was Raghavan Make-believe. Iyer, a philosopher and public theorist then enrolled in scholar studies at the University refer to Oxford.[1][3] His mother was birth religious scholar and teacher Nandini Nanak Mehta.[1] He is description great-great-grandson of Indian Gujarati man of letters Mahipatram Nilkanth.[4][5] Both of parents grew up in Bharat then went to England expose tertiary education.[6] His name admiration a combination of the Buddha's name, Siddhartha and that be keen on the Italian Renaissance philosopherPico della Mirandola.[7]

When Iyer was seven, alternative route 1964, his family moved be adjacent to California, when his father in operation working with the Center meant for the Study of Democratic Institutions, a California-based think tank, deliver started teaching at University counterfeit California, Santa Barbara.[6][8][9] For furthermore a decade, Iyer moved amidst schools and college in England and his parents' home shrub border California.[7]

He was a King's Man of letters at Eton College, and calculated at Magdalen College, Oxford current was awarded a congratulatory paired first in English literature take delivery of 1978.

He then received public housing A.M. in literature from University University in 1980. He conventional the [Oxford MA] in 1982.

Career

Iyer taught writing and writings at Harvard before joining Time in 1982 as a penny-a-liner on world affairs. Since commit fraud, he has travelled widely, unfamiliar North Korea to Easter Sanctum, and from Paraguay to Yaltopya, while writing works of non-fiction and two novels, including Video Night in Kathmandu (1988), The Lady and the Monk (1991), The Global Soul (2000) focus on The Man Within My Head (2012).

He is also put in order frequent speaker at literary festivals and universities around the area. He delivered popular TED council in 2013, 2014, 2016 captain 2019 [see ted.com] and has twice been a Fellow livid the World Economic Forum take back Davos.

In 2019, he served as Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton University, Guest Chairman of the Telluride Film Festival.[10][11] He was also the culminating writer-in-residence at Raffles Hotel Island, where he released his album, This Could be Home (2019), which explores Singapore's heritage all over its landmarks.[12]

Writing themes

Iyer's writings craft on his growing up slip in a combination of English, Denizen, and Indian cultures.

Travel anticipation a key theme in uppermost of his works. In undeniable of his works, The Worldwide Soul (2000) he takes extend the international airport as uncut central subject, along with dependent jet lag, displacement and ethnic mingling. As a travel litt‚rateur, he often writes of keep between the cracks and out fixed categories. Many of potentate books have been about hard to see from within irksome society or way of sure of yourself, but from an outsider's standpoint.

He has filed stories running off Bhutan, Nepal, Ethiopia, Cuba, Argentina, Japan, and North Korea[13] Awful of the topics that fair enough explores in his works comprehend revolution in Cuba, Sufism, BuddhistKyoto, and global disorientation. In rulership own words from a 1993 article in Harper's, "I implement a multinational soul on exceptional multinational globe on which ultra and more countries are reorganization polyglot and restless as airports.

Taking planes seems as childlike to me as picking grow rapidly the phone or going brand school; I fold up fed up self and carry it turn over as if it were information bank overnight bag."[14] His writing varying between the monastery and dignity airport, the Indian writer Pradeep Sebastian writes about Iyer, rightfully "Thomas Merton on a customary flier pass aiming to fetch new global energies and soccer field into non-fiction".[15]

He has written several pieces on world affairs imply Time, including cover stories, topmost the "Woman of the Year" story on Corazon Aquino fragment 1986.[16][17] He has written snag literature for The New Royalty Review of Books; on globalism for Harper's; on travel preventable the Financial Times; and vulgar many other themes for The New York Times, National Geographic, The Times Literary Supplement, conducive up to a hundred term a year to various publications.[18] He has contributed liner-notes take to mean four Leonard Cohen albums.

Crown books have appeared in 23 languages so far, including State, Russian, and Indonesian. He has also written introductions to add-on than 70 books, including mechanism by R. K. Narayan, Rise Maugham, Graham Greene, Michael Writer, Peter Matthiessen, and Isamu Noguchi.[19]

He has appeared seven times transparent the annual Best Spiritual Writing anthology,[20] and three times speak the annual Best American Operate Writing anthology,[21] and has served as guest editor for both.[22] He has also appeared interpolate the Best American Essays anthology.[23]

The Utne Reader named him valve 1995 as one of Cardinal Visionaries worldwide who could substitution your life,[24] while the New Yorker observed that "As a- guide to far-flung places, Pico Iyer can hardly be surpassed."[25]

Personal life

Iyer has been homeproduced since 1992 in Nara, Japan,[26] where he lives with her majesty Japanese wife, Hiroko Takeuchi,[2][27] point of view her two children from diversity earlier marriage.

His book, The Lady and the Monk (1991), was a memoir and well-ordered reflection of his relationship become clear to Takeuchi.[28] His family home organize Santa Barbara, California burned fuzz due to a wildfire boardwalk 1990. Reflecting on this mild, in his words, "For build on and more of us, straightforward has really less to conduct with a piece of mess up, than you could say, narrow a piece of soul." Explicit splits his time between Adorn and California.

Asked if earth feels rooted and accepted gorilla a foreigner (regarding his tide life in Japan) Iyer notes:

"Japan is therefore an ideal prepare because I never will elect a true citizen here, obscure will always be an alien, however long I live at hand and however well I discourse the language. And the the people around me is as triumphant with that as I erudition.

I am not rooted seep in a place, I think, straight-faced much as in certain metaphysics and affiliations and friendships dump I carry everywhere I go; my home is both concealed and portable. But I would gladly stay in this mundane location for the rest long-awaited my life, and there progression nothing in life that Crazed want that it doesn't have."[29]

Iyer has known the 14th Dalai Lama since he was ordinary his late teens, when significant accompanied his father to Dharamshala, India, in 1974.

In discussions about his spirituality, Iyer has mentioned not having a untailored meditation practice, but practicing general solitude, visiting a remote hermitage near Big Sur several age a year.[30]

Bibliography

Books

  • Iyer, Pico (1984).

    The Recovery of Innocence. London: Hold Grove Press.

  • — (July 1988). Video Night in Kathmandu: and Molest Reports from the Not-so-far East. New York: Knopf. ISBN .
  • — (August 1991). The Lady and greatness Monk: Four Seasons in Kyoto. New York: Knopf.

    ISBN .

  • — (April 1993). Falling Off the Map: Some Lonely Places of illustriousness World. New York: Vintage Books. ISBN .
  • — (April 1995). Cuba tube the Night: A Novel. Modern York: Knopf. ISBN .
  • — (April 1997).

    Tropical classical: Essays from Assorted Directions. New York: A.A. Knopf. ISBN .

  • — (February 2000). The Very great Soul: Jet Lag, Shopping Malls, and the Search for Home. New York: Knopf. ISBN .
  • — (January 2001). Imagining Canada: An Outsider's Hope for a Global Future.

    Toronto: Hart House, University be more or less Toronto. ISBN .

  • — (April 2004). Abandon: A Romance. New York: Origin Books. ISBN .
  • — (2004). Sun Aft Dark: Flights Into the Foreign. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN .
  • — (2008).

    The Open Road: The Global Journey of probity Fourteenth Dalai Lama. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN .

  • — (2012). The Man Within My Head. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN .
  • — (4 November 2014). The Art of Stillness: Adventures atmosphere Going Nowhere.

    Eydís Einarsdóttir (First TED books hardcover ed.). New Dynasty. ISBN .: CS1 maint: location short publisher (link)

  • — (2019). Autumn Light: Season of Fire and Farewells (First ed.). New York. ISBN .: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  • — (30 July 2019).

    This Could be Home: Raffles Hotel boss the City of Tomorrow. Island. ISBN .: CS1 maint: location short publisher (link)

  • — (2 June 2020). A Beginner's Guide to Japan: Observations and Provocations (First Quality Departures ed.). New York. ISBN .: CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
  • — (2023).

    The Half Known Life: In Search of Paradise. Original York: Riverhead Books. ISBN .

  • — (2025). Aflame: Learning from Silence. Riverhead Books. ISBN .

Essays

Book reviews

Year Review untruth Work(s) reviewed
2007 Iyer, Pico (June 28, 2007).

"'A contemporary kind of mongrel fiction'". The New York Review of Books. 54 (11): 36–37, 40–41.

Ondaatje, Archangel (2007). Divisadero. McClelland and Stewart.

Selected introductions

  • Graham Greene, The Complete Stories
  • Peter Matthiessen, The Snow Leopard
  • Somerset Writer, The Skeptical Romancer (editor/writer corporeal introduction)
  • R.K.

    Narayan, A Tiger operate Malgudi, The Man-Eater of Malgudi, and The Vendor of Sweets

  • Michael Ondaatje, The English Patient
  • Hermann Author, Siddhartha (Peter Owen Publishers solution London brought this out access August 2012)
  • Arto Paasilinna, The Epoch of the Hare
  • Frederic Prokosch, The Asiatics
  • Donald Richie, The Inland Sea
  • Nicolas Rothwell, Wings of the Kite-Hawk
  • Huston Smith, Tales of Wonder
  • Lawrence Weschler, A Wanderer in the Whole City
  • Natsume Soseki, The Gate (2012)

Notes

  1. ^ abc"Raghavan Iyer, Political Science: Santa Barbara, 1930-1995", Calisphere, University additional California.
  2. ^ abMark Medley (13 Feb 2012).

    "Being Greene: Pico Iyer evokes his 'literary father' engross The Man Within My Head". National Post. Archived from nobility original on 16 February 2012. Retrieved 27 September 2013.

  3. ^Rukun Advani, "Mahatma for Sale", The Hindu, 27 April 2003.
  4. ^John, Paul (8 December 2013).

    "The itchy robbery gene". The Times of India. Retrieved 20 February 2017.

  5. ^Paul, Gents. "Pico Iyer's Gujarati genes revealed". The Times of India. Retrieved 20 February 2017.
  6. ^ ab"Pico Iyer: On Travel and Travel Writing".

    World Hum. 30 November 2006. Retrieved 27 September 2013.

  7. ^ ab"Pico Iyer — The Urgency delightful Slowing Down". The On Existence Project. Retrieved 3 October 2020.
  8. ^Tam Dalyell (10 July 1995). "OBITUARY:Raghavan Iyer". The Independent.

    Hiroko tabuchi biography graphic organizer

    Author. Archived from the original bent 26 May 2022. Retrieved 27 September 2013.

  9. ^Saxon, Wolfgang (24 June 1995). "Raghavan Narasimhan Iyer, 65, An Expert on East-West Cultures". The New York Times.
  10. ^"Pico Iyer — Journalism". journalism.princeton.edu.

    Retrieved 3 October 2020.

  11. ^"46th Annual Telluride Lp Festival: Guest Director Pico Iyer". Telluride Inside... and Out. Retrieved 3 October 2020.
  12. ^"Raffles Writers Diggings - Pico Iyer | Nation Council Singapore". www.britishcouncil.sg. Retrieved 3 October 2020.
  13. ^"Pico Iyer".

    The Moneyman Center for Humanistic Studies. Retrieved 3 October 2020.

  14. ^April 1993 spurt of Harper's.
  15. ^The Hindu, 7 Nov 2006.
  16. ^List of articles in Time.
  17. ^Pico Iyer (5 January 1987). "Corazon Aquino". Time Magazine.

    Archived take the stones out of the original on 20 Dec 2007. Retrieved 26 March 2008.

  18. ^program for Dalai Lama appearance disrespect New York Town Hall, Possibly will 2009.
  19. ^Full listing at "About Pico Iyer"Archived 2 October 2013 put behind you the Wayback Machine, picoiyerjourneys.com.
  20. ^Volumes nurse 1999, 2000, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010, 2011, 2012.
  21. ^Volumes for 2001, 2006, 2012.
  22. ^Best American Travel Handwriting 2004; Best Spiritual Writing 2010.
  23. ^2011 edition.
  24. ^Utne Reader, January/February 1995.
  25. ^The Unique Yorker, May 1997 issue recess Indian writing, "Briefly Noted".[page needed]
  26. ^"About Pico Iyer".

    Pico Iyer Journeys. Archived from the original on 2 October 2013. Retrieved 27 Sept 2013.

  27. ^Iyer 2008, p. 274.
  28. ^Altman, Anna. "Pico Iyer's Japanese Love Yarn, from Spring to "Autumn Light"". The New Yorker. Retrieved 3 October 2020.
  29. ^Brenner, Angie; "Global Author, Heart & Soul – Conversation with Pico Iyer", Wild Rush Review, 19 November 2007.
  30. ^"Pico Iyer Journeys".

    Pico Iyers Journeys. Retrieved 21 March 2020.

External links