Advertisement
PostMag
Life.Culture.Discovery.
Books and literature
PostMagBooks

Pico Iyer on how a chance layover in Japan changed his life and literature hindered his ability to write

  • The writer will headline the Hong Kong International Literary Festival in November
  • ‘I grew up in Britain, but I’m entirely Asian’ he says, explaining his affinity with Hong Kong and Singapore

Reading Time:5 minutes
Why you can trust SCMP
0
British writer Pico Iyer. Photo: Brigitte Lacombe
Kate Whitehead

Novelist and non-fiction writer Pico Iyer has always had a soft spot for Hong Kong. His first visit, in 1983, was as a 26-year-old reporter for Time magazine and he’s been a regular ever since. He has twice featured in the Hong Kong International Literary Festival – in 2003 and 2006 – and will be the headline author at this year’s event, in November.

“Whenever I come to Hong Kong, I feel I am walking into the future of the planet – there is such a sense of dynamism. And also, a little bit of my past because of the British monuments and the British people that are so much part of what I remember from my boyhood,” Iyer says over the phone from the Raffles Hotel in Singapore, where he is the property’s first official writer in residence.

His time in Singapore, staying with his Japanese wife, Hiroko Takeuchi, in the newly renovated heritage property, has been a chance to reflect on his connection with the Lion City, which led to the publication in July of This Could Be Home: Raffles Hotel and the City of Tomorrow.

“I grew up in Britain, but I’m entirely Asian. As soon as I came to Singapore I felt that [the city] is my brother, this is a place with a strong British presence and grounding, but distinctly Asian. Of course, I feel that even more with Hong Kong,” says Iyer.

But don’t assume that his yearning for the Britain of his youth means he wants to write about it.

Advertisement