“Even then I realized I’m 100 percent Indian by blood, but I’d never been to India and don’t speak a word of any of its languages, and I’m 100 percent English by birth, but no one would ever take me for a traditional Englishman,” he said. Several have traveled with funding from Princeton University, such as for senior thesis research.Ī lifelong itinerant, Iyer was born in Oxford, England, to Indian parents who moved to Santa Barbara, California, when he was 7, though Iyer continued his schooling in England. His students - a mix of first-years, sophomores, juniors and seniors, some of international origin - have already been keeping their own count. His explorations have taken him to at least 80 countries over the years, including places like North Korea, Easter Island, Ethiopia and Bhutan, he said. His titles include “Falling Off the Map: Some Lonely Places of the World,” “The Art of Stillness: Adventures in Going Nowhere,” “The Global Soul: Jet Lag, Shopping Malls and the Search for Home,” and “The Open Road: The Global Journey of the Fourteenth Dalai Lama.”ĭenise Applewhite, Office of Communications In teaching “The Literature of Fact - Writing and Reporting on Place,” Iyer said he has been impressed by the global outlook and awareness of his 16 students, who have striking travel stories of their own.Ī former staff writer and longtime contributor for Time, Iyer is the author of two novels and 11 works of nonfiction, many of them travel-related. “And I think happily, because it’s a theme I share.” “Issues about home and belonging and juggling cultures are going to be a theme throughout their lives,” said Iyer, a visiting lecturer in the Humanities Council and a Ferris Professor of Journalism at Princeton this spring. Exploring the idea of place is taking students enrolled in essayist Pico Iyer’s spring journalism course well beyond the geographic coordinates of the Princeton campus.

Oracle bones by peter hessler