“The poverty one still sees in America today is more shocking to me than anything I have seen in Ethiopia or Calcutta or Manila, and has made me, as someone living in a society of great wealth and someone who's never had to worry about the next meal, think seriously about what universal responsibility really means.”

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.