Pico Iyer

Pico Iyer is the author of 18 books, translated into 23 languages. Four of his books have been national best-sellers across the U.S. and his five talks for TED have received more than 12 million views so far.

He has been interviewed by everyone from Oprah Winfrey to Krista Tippett to Larry King and his "Speaking with Pico" series of onstage conversations has involved intimate 90-minute conversations with Isabella Rossellini, Werner Herzog, Marina Abramovic, Philip Glass and many others.

Born in Oxford, England, he was educated at Eton, Oxford and Harvard, and in recent years has served as a Ferris Professor at Princeton, a Montgomery Fellow at Dartmouth, the Guest Director of the Telluride Film Festival and the first official Writer-in-Residence at Raffles Singapore.

His writing has been rewarded with honorary degrees, the Robert Kirsch Lifetime Achievement Award and induction into the American Academy of Arts and Letters.

Since 1987 he has based himself in Western Japan.