“I can still remember the afternoon, on my 15th birthday, when I opened up 'The Virgin and the Gypsy,' D.H. Lawrence's novella, in my tiny cell in boarding school, and whole worlds of possibility opened out that I had never guessed existed. The language was on fire and sang of liberation.”

English-born essayist and novelist

Pico Iyer is an English-born essayist and novelist known chiefly for his travel writing. He is best known for books about crossing cultures and for essays shaped by life between places. His work includes Video Night in Kathmandu, The Lady and the Monk, and The Global Soul. He has also written for Time, Harper's, The New York Review of Books, and The New York Times, and his writing often returns to travel, identity, and cultural exchange.