Some Recent Pieces of Iyer (October 2019)
“Japan still inhabits its own ancestral universe”–An essay on Japan for TIME magazine, April 22, 2019 “With New Emperor, Japan Enters the Era of `Joyful Harmony’ “—An Op-Ed on the ascent of a new Emperor in Japan, World Post, Berggruen Institute—April 26, 2019 “The beautiful art-filled Japanese islands left behind by the modern world”—An essay […]
Some Recent Pieces of Iyer (April 2019)
“A Land Apart”—a short essay on why Japan is the Destination of 2019, in Travel & Leisure, December 2018. “Home, Sweet, Temporary Home”—an essay on Tenzing Dakpa’s series of photographs, “The Hotel,” for Aperture magazine, Winter 2018. “The Reel World”—a short essay on seeing movies around the world for Airbnb Magazine, January 2019. “In the […]
Some Recent Pieces of Iyer (September 2018)
“The Restless, Furious, Quietly Abiding Friend of us All”—an essay on my longtime, unmet friend, Thomas Merton, for the book, What I am Living For, a collection of essays on Merton. “Japan’s Enchanted Islands”—an account of a trip around Naoshima, Teshima and Inujima, for WSJ, the Wall Street Journal Magazine, May 5, 2018 “The Future […]
Some Recent Pieces of Iyer (April 2018)
“Troubled Waters”-a review of Richard Lloyd Parry’s Ghosts of the Tsunami, for the New York Times Book Review, December 31, 2017. “The River”-a short essay on the meaning of change, for the great young British magazine Satori, December 2017 “Why I’m an Optimist”-an essay for Elle India, January 2018. “Damaraland, Namibia-Where `Each Day Lasts 100 […]
Some Recent Pieces of Iyer (September 2017)
“The Mysterious Man who Gave me Japan”—a short essay on a friend I met in Kyoto for the “Chance Encounter” section of BBC Travel—April 19, 2017 “Journey into Terror”—an essay on a trip to Yemen, for the debut issue of Anastomas, Chapman University’s interdisciplinary journal—April 2017 “Nymphets in the New Japan”—a long essay on the […]
Some Recent Pieces of Iyer (March 2017)
“The Beauty of What We’ll Never Know” —a talk for ted..com (originally delivered as the closing talk at the TED Summit in Banff, June 30, 2016), posted October 11, 2016 “How the Light Goes Out”—an essay on Leonard Cohen’s new album, “You Want it Darker,” on Walrus.com, October 20, 2016, updated and revised in The […]
Some Recent Pieces of Iyer (September 2016)
“A Valentine Day’s treat from Japan”—a short essay on how to savor the romantic’s holiday on a single short street in Kyoto, in Sweet, February 14, 2016. A long essay on a new biography of film-maker Terrence Malick—The Australian, May 28, 2016. “The Great Wide Open”—a travel-essay on a recent trip to Mongolia, in Travel […]
Some Recent Pieces of Iyer (January 2016)
“Empty Cities”—a meditation on Las Vegas and Pyongyang, NYR Daily, the New York Review of Books blog, August 13, 2015. “History Has no Place’”—a mistitled essay on Japan’s unsentimental taking care of sentiment—New York Times T Magazine, August 23, 2015. “The Disappearance of Self in Japan”—an essay for the Berggruen Institute of Philosophy and Culture—Huffnington […]
Some Recent Pieces of Iyer (August 2015)
“The Man in the White Tunic”—a tiny vignette from a recent trip to Kashmir, appearing in BBC Travel, April 29, 2015 “It’s Not a Small World After All”—an essay for Toronto’s Globe & Mail, June 7, 2015 “On the Road with the Dalai Lama”—a new essay in Shambhala Sun’s July 2015 Collector’s Edition booklet commemorating […]
Some Fresh Pieces of Iyer (May 2015)
“The Ultimate McTraveler—One Man’s Quest to See the World through McDonald’s”—Yahoo Travel, February 26, 2015 “Negotiating with Iran and Farhadi’s Films”–an essay on the films of Arshad Farhadi—The World Post, April 22, 2015. “Resume vs. Eulogy”—a review of David Brooks’s The Road to Character—The New York Times Book Review, April 26, 2015