Searching for Paradise with Pico Iyer

Tricycle Talks

For 50 years, Pico Iyer has been traveling the globe, seeking out sacred sites from the hidden shrines of Iran to the funeral pyres of Varanasi. Iyer believes that travel can help us confront questions that we tend to avoid or bypass when we’re at home, forcing us out of our usual routines and bringing us into contact with the “crisscrossing of cultures.” In his latest book, "The Half Known Life: In Search of Paradise," Iyer investigates how different cultures have understood the notion of paradise, recounting his travels to contested places including Jerusalem, Kashmir, Sri Lanka, and Ladakh. In this episode of Tricycle Talks, Tricycle’s editor in chief, James Shaheen, sits down with Iyer to discuss the risks of the commercialization of paradise, the power of not knowing, and how we can find paradise in the midst of impermanence.