The Half Known Life: In Search of Paradise

"With soulful curiosity channeled in his ever-lyrical prose, Pico Iyer chronicles a lifetime of pilgrimages to some of Earth’s greatest shrines to that longing in The Half Known Life: In Search of Paradise."

"Voyaging from shadowy mosques and gardens of Iran (where the same Farsi word is used for both “garden” and “paradise”) to the stark skyline of North Korea; from the deceptively peaceful lakes of Kashmir to the unyielding terrains of Ladakh and the tense sunlit lawns of Sri Lanka; from the wrathful Old Testament landscape of Broome, Australia, to the fog-shrouded embankments of Varanasi; from the clamorous streets of Jerusalem to the hushed temples of Koyasan, Japan, Pico Iyer captures the otherworldly beauty of these places while acknowledging the paradox of utopia. Why do so many paradises rupture in suffering and chaos? Is the serpent a natural habitant of paradise? In the process, he also questions our idea of knowledge by embracing the half-known life, “where so many of our possibilities lie.”"