Npr pico iyer biography

English essayist and novelist

Siddharth Pico Raghavan Iyer (born 11 February 1957), known as Pico Iyer, is an English-born essayist and novelist known chiefly for his travel writing. He is the author of numerous books on crossing cultures including Video Night in Kathmandu, The Lady and the Monk and The Global Soul.

Fresh Air Weekend: Author Pico Iyer; Comic Roy Wood Jr.

He has been a contributor to Time,Harper's, The New York Review of Books, and The New York Times.

Early life

Iyer was born Siddharth Pico Raghavan Iyer in Oxford, England, the son of Indian parents. His father was Raghavan N. Iyer, a philosopher and political theorist then enrolled in doctoral studies at the University of Oxford.^[1][3] His mother was the religious scholar and teacher Nandini Nanak Mehta.^[1] He is the great-great-grandson of Indian Gujarati writer Mahipatram Nilkanth.^[4][5] Both of his parents grew up in India then went to England for tertiary education.^[6] Hi Pico Iyer: Our constant search for paradise : NPR JIH