I’m more than a little surprised to find myself in this box: my idea of NEWS is something that happened in 1848, and I think there are better things to advertise and take notice of than my tiny doings or scribbles.
But now that DDB Singapore has brought me into the 20th century – with every sign of coaxing me into the 21st – I’m happy to welcome anyone who’s interested to this space, where we may now and then post something that’s not easily found elsewhere, a video clip from our recent journeys or something that might be of interest to anyone who’s traveled as far as this unexpected corner.
Thank you for your time and attention, and if you’re irritated by something here, please blame the brilliant designers of these pages. Without them, I’d still be in some black hole!
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THE NEWS ARCHIVES
- April 2024
- October 2023
- April 2023
- November 2022
- March 2022
- October 2021
- February 2021
- July 2020
- October 2019
- July 2019
- April 2019
- September 2018
- April 2018
- March 2017
- September 2016
- April 2016
- January 2015
- August 2015
- May 2015
- February 2015
- October 2014
- June 2014
- February 2014
- August 2013
- June 2013
- December 2012
- May 2012
- April 2012
- November 2011
“Beneath Us, Beyond Us, Inside Us”—a long introductory essay to the book Masks, by National Geographic photographer Chris Rainier, October 2019
“The Shock of the Old”—an essay on the Naoshima project for the Benesse Art Site Naoshima newsletter, October 2019
“Relative Values”–an essay on Japan and its different relation to reality, for the Times Literary Supplement, November 22, 2019.
“The Newest New, The Oldest Old”—an essay on Koyasan and Koshien, Silver Kris, December 2019
“The Calm Before the Storm”—a letter from Hong Kong in Air Mail, December 7, 2019
“It’s Almost 2020. Have We Really Gotten Wiser?”—an Op-Ed piece for The New York Times, December 23, 2019
“The Dead Prime Ministers’ Society”—an essay on Eton in Air Mail, January 4, 2020
“How to be Cool and Warm At Once”—a tribute to the late Sonny Mehta, for Air Mail January 11, 2020
“The Light All Around Us”–a short essay on the photographic work of Robert Adams—Aperture, February 2020
An interview on the Virus moment for the Sunday Times of India, April 5, 2020– Read here
An interview with Mint, April 15, 2020– Read here
“Joyful participation in a world of sorrow”–A conversation with Cheryl Strayed for the Sugar Calling podcast hosted by The New York Times, April 15, 2020
“Contemplation in isolation”—A conversation with Jonathan Bastian on the pilot episode of “Foxhole” on KCRW radio station, April 25, 2020
“On Returning”–An essay on how and why travel is more important than ever, in Conde Nast Traveler, May/June 2020
“How a stopover at Tokyo Airport changed my life:”—an essay for The Guardian, May 16, 2020
“We cannot function without travel—an Op-Ed for the Globe & Mail, May 30, 2020
“Pico Iyer on the secret of immersive travel”—an essay for BBC.com, June 12, 2020
“The Origin of Paradise”—an essay on Iran for Bloomberg Business Week, June 29, 2020
For an unusually rich, searching and fresh interview, please read “A Friend Afar,” by the exceptional Austrian writer and journalist, Simon Schreyer: – Read here
If you’re interested in hearing Pico Iyer speak, here are a few dates and places to try:
| October 12 | Conversation(online) with Barbara Kingsolver, UCSB Santa Barbara, California |
| December 3 | Conversation(online) with Cheryl Strayed, UCSB Santa Barbara, California |
| April 4-9, 2021 | TED Conference, Vancouver, British Columbia |
| April 12 | Conversation with Parul Sehgal, Greg Cowles, Chapman U. Orange, California |
| April 14 | Lecture, University of California at Irvine, Irvine, California |
| April 16 | Conversation with Mohsin Hamid, UCSB Santa Barbara, California |
| April 18 | Keynote lecture, Travel Con, New Orleans, Louisiana |
| April 19-25 | Two lectures, Festival of Faiths, Louisville, Kentucky |
| May 13 | Conversation with Elizabeth Strout, UCSB Santa Barbara, California |
| June 3-7 | Workshop with Abbess Furyu Schroeder, Tassajara Carmel, California |
| July 5-9 | Writing Workshop, Santa Fe Workshops, Santa Fe, New Mexico |
| September 20-23 | Lecture, Adventure Travel Summit, Sapporo, Japan |
| Mar 25-30, 2022 | Silversea World Cruise 2022, Jiddah, South Africa – Petra, Jordan |
| October 2-9, 2022 | Montgomery Fellow, Dartmouth College, Hanover, New Hampshire |
Many more engagements are currently in the works.