Author and traveller Pico Iyer talks swapping Harvard for an empty room in Kyoto, being writer in residence at Raffles Singapore, and his next book on Californian Benedictine monks.

Pico Iyer has penned books on everything from the Dalai Lama to the Cuban revolution and his recent novel, The Half Known Life, discusses different perceptions of paradise. A regular traveller and festival speaker, Iyer embraced the pandemic shut down to focus on his craft while seeking inspiration for future projects.

READ: 10 Magical Summer Moments in Monaco

Your latest book, The Half Known Life, discusses different perceptions of paradise. What is paradise to you?

I think we all know and feel that paradise lies within; the only calm and clarity we can ever find, and trust, must be inside us. But in this book, I wanted to explore difficult, and sometimes conflicted places to see how we could ever find hope and light even amid the shadows that life is always going to bring. The paradise I’ve found on a beach on a sunny day never lasts for long.

You appeared at the Hong Kong Literary Festival. What are your own personal highlights of the city?

Hong Kong is not just an old friend but a kind of sibling as a complex mix of Britain and Asia (just as I am) that always seems to be in movement (just as I am). I love the energy of the place, the dishevelment and the sleekness, the wild confluence of cultures around Nathan Road, the sheer beauty of Stanley. Maybe my favourite place, as with many a tourist, is the Star Ferry, the best discount on earth as well as one of the most beautiful rides.

READ: Eat, Stay & Play in Chiang Mai

How did the pandemic affect your output? Did you feel glad to be grounded or anxious to be back on the road?

I’m almost embarrassed to say that the pandemic offered ideal conditions for me, akin to the writer’s retreat I dreamed of but never expected to find. I don’t often get the chance to stay in one place for months on end, and I managed to break the back of four books, while also uncovering wonders down the road the equal to anything I might see in Rio or Cape Town. I’ve been lucky to see many beautiful places, but I’ve always felt that transport ultimately takes place only in memory, heart and imagination.

You split your time between California and suburban Japan. How do these places inspire you?

Japan inspires me with its kindness, its zaniness, its rare gift for attention. The way my neighbours listen and instinctively think of others even before themselves humbles as much as it instructs me. California mostly inspires through its long horizons and sense of possibility. So, I suppose you could say that Japan offers me the seasoned wisdom of a very old culture, and California the wide-open future tense of a very young one. Between them, perhaps, they make hope and history rhyme.

READ: The Flavour of the Future

You’re a very prolific traveller, but how do you like to travel – do you have any rituals or routines?

Having grown up in airports – from the age of nine, I was flying alone above Greenland six times a year between school and home – I never find it hard to work or relax there. I arrive early for every flight, I always try to fly Economy (since, if I have the money, I’d rather spend it on seven nights in a nice hotel than on seven hours of extra legroom), I sit by the right-hand window, and I usually read or sleep. These days, like many people, I get some of my best work done in the undistracted quiet of a plane.

You were the first writer-in-residence at Raffles Hotel Singapore, where you released This Could be Home, which explores Singapore’s heritage through its landmarks. Tell us about that experience.

I’d been visiting the Raffles since 1984, when it was a wonderfully atmospheric place of slow-moving fans, spacious lawns, a handwritten ledger at the front desk and improbably low prices, so it’s been fun to grow up with it, and with Singapore, and to see them both through many changes. Since I grew up on many of the writers associated with Raffles, from Maugham to Neruda to le Carre, it was a special delight to stay there for two weeks right after its latest renovation.

READ: A Day in the Arctic Jewel

What travel trends do you expect to emerge in the coming years?

I’ve never seen the skies so crowded and chaotic, with so many of us trying to cram two years of lockdown dreams into two weeks of holiday. I really hope that things will settle down soon, and that airline prices will come down a little. On behalf of my neighbours, however, I’m delighted to see so much of the world flocking back to Japan, with more and more visitors these days in search not just of sights, but of experiences – and everything that lies between the sights.

You’ve been roaming the world for 50 years. What have been some of the biggest changes you’ve noticed in how people travel?

The two biggest trends I’ve witnessed in recent years are that travel has become more democratic. In Japan we see so many more visitors from China and India and Thailand and Mexico than we saw 30 years ago. And that travel has acquired a conscience. In my youth, most passengers on airlines seemed to be travelling to get something: a souvenir, an experience, in my case an education; now many are travelling to give something—help to refugees, expertise to protect victims from sex trafficking, work to combat the climate crisis.

When I was flying a lot as a boy, most of the passengers around me were part of a privileged minority; of course, too much travel is still out of the reach of too many, but I’m glad if the notion of exoticism has matured into a sense of a global neighbourhood, in which we’re responsible for everyone else and not just consumers.

READ: These are Our Favourite Neighbourhoods in Istanbul

You’ve already achieved plenty. Do you still have any ambitions?

I left an exciting-seeming job in New York City for an empty room in Kyoto when I was 29, so, ever since, I suppose I’ve been trying mainly to find calm and peace and health. I’d love to keep writing for as long as possible, and I’ll be delighted if those around me can remain as healthy as possible for as long as possible.

Any ideas for the next book?

I’m just finishing a companion book to The Half Known Life, on the 32 years I’ve spent with a group of Benedictine monks in California; I’ve gone on retreat with them now more than 100 times and have come to know them, and their community, as closely as I might brothers or a home. When Adam is led to the gates of Paradise, and exile, in Paradise Lost, he is told by an archangel that now he must find “a paradise within thee, happier far.” Having investigated paradise in ten external locations, I’m now looking at a group of men who try to cultivate it by going nowhere!