Publish with Us

Follow Penguin

Follow Penguinsters

Follow Penguin Swadesh

The Half Known Life

The Half Known Life

In Search of Paradise

Pico Iyer
Select Preferred Format
Buying Options
Paperback / Hardback

Paradise: that elusive place where the anxieties, struggles, and burdens of life fall away. Most of us dream of it, but each of us has very different ideas about where it is to be found. For some it can be enjoyed only after death; for others, it’s in our midst-or just across the ocean-if only we can find eyes to see it.

Traveling from Iran to North Korea, from the Dalai Lama’s Himalayas to the ghostly temples of Japan, Pico Iyer brings together a lifetime of explorations to upend our ideas of utopia and ask how we might find peace in the midst of difficulty and suffering. Does religion lead us back to Eden or only into constant contention? Why do so many seeming paradises turn into warzones? And does paradise exist only in the afterworld – or can it be found in the here and now?

For almost fifty years Iyer has been roaming the world, mixing a global soul’s delight in observing cultures with a pilgrim’s readiness to be transformed. In this culminating work, he brings together the outer world and the inner to offer us a surprising, original, often beautiful exploration of how we might come upon paradise in the midst of our very real lives.

Imprint: India Penguin

Published: Mar/2025

ISBN: 9780143472346

Length : 256 Pages

MRP : ₹399.00

The Half Known Life

In Search of Paradise

Pico Iyer

Paradise: that elusive place where the anxieties, struggles, and burdens of life fall away. Most of us dream of it, but each of us has very different ideas about where it is to be found. For some it can be enjoyed only after death; for others, it’s in our midst-or just across the ocean-if only we can find eyes to see it.

Traveling from Iran to North Korea, from the Dalai Lama’s Himalayas to the ghostly temples of Japan, Pico Iyer brings together a lifetime of explorations to upend our ideas of utopia and ask how we might find peace in the midst of difficulty and suffering. Does religion lead us back to Eden or only into constant contention? Why do so many seeming paradises turn into warzones? And does paradise exist only in the afterworld – or can it be found in the here and now?

For almost fifty years Iyer has been roaming the world, mixing a global soul’s delight in observing cultures with a pilgrim’s readiness to be transformed. In this culminating work, he brings together the outer world and the inner to offer us a surprising, original, often beautiful exploration of how we might come upon paradise in the midst of our very real lives.

Buying Options
Paperback / Hardback

Pico Iyer

PICO IYER is the acclaimed and bestselling author of more than a dozen books translated into twenty-three languages, most recently The Half Known Life: In Search of Paradise. His journalism regularly appears in Time, New York Times, New York Review of Books, Financial Times, and more than 250 other periodicals worldwide. His TED talks have been viewed over eleven million times. He divides his time between western Japan and central California.

More By The Author

Start the year with these new releases!

As one year melts into a new one, we remember the things we are grateful for. All the people we met and held close, all the things we got to experience and most of all, the stories we call our own. Celebrate this New Year with these new books releasing this month – fresh, exciting […]

error: Content is protected !!