Pico Iyer

Pico Iyer

Pico Iyer is the author of fifteen books, most recently
Autumn Light and A Beginner’s Guide to Japan, twinned works on living with uncer­tainty and impermanence.

Books

Recent Articles

The World Is Your Zendo

On remote islands, Pico Iyer discovers that this moment, now, is the gift-wrapped present we can’t afford to overlook.

How Travel Opens Your Mind and Heart

Travel wakes us up to the world. Three personal stories of transformational travel in Thailand, Ethiopia, and Yemen.

Pico Iyer looks over railing at water.

An Interview with Pico Iyer, The Contemplative Traveler

For writer Pico Iyer, travel is a spiritual experience that shakes up our usual certainties and connects us to a richer, vaster world. Iyer talks with editor-in-chief Melvin McLeod about his book, "The Half Known Life: In Search of Paradise," and his eclectic contemplative practice.

My Flight from the Real

Pico Iyer thought he would find what is truly real by going off to a monastery, but he was really fleeing it. Dropping his spiritual romaticism, he found it in ordinary life.

Whatever Way the Wind Blows

So-called objective reality, Pico Iyer finds, is as fickle as the weather. Maybe that’s because it’s as much mind as matter.