Pico Iyer

Why you should listen

Pico Iyer's books have been translated into more than 20 languages. Both his 2008 meditation on the XIVth Dalai Lama, The Open Road, and his TED Book, The Art of Stillness, were best sellers across the US. Outside magazine called him "arguably the greatest living travel-writer," and the New Yorker said, "As a guide to far-flung places, he can hardly be surpassed." Between 2012 and 2016, Iyer delivered three talks for TED, and they have received more than eight million views so far.Since 2013, Iyer has delivered four talks for TED, including the closing talk for the first-ever TEDSummit, in 2016, and the opening talk for the second TEDSummit, in 2019.An essayist for TIME since 1986, Iyer is a constant contributor the New York Times, The New York Review of Books, Harper's, Granta and more than 200 other newspapers and magazines worldwide, and he has published introductions to 70 other works.