Pico Iyer

Why you should listen

Novelist and nonfiction author Pico Iyer has written about everything from Islamic mysticism to the 21st-century world order. His 17 books (translated into 23 languages) include The Open Road, The Art of Stillness and, most recently, Aflame: Learning from Silence, an exploration of the abiding clarity and calm to be found in quiet retreat. For the past 50 years, he has regularly spoken and traveled with the Dalai Lama — and has made more than 100 retreats at a Benedictine monastery in California.