Orange High School Students Get Up-Close and Personal With Pico Iyer and Dean Fuery

“My home is what I carry around inside me,” said renowned journalist Pico Iyer. “Home is my wife, my favorite book, my favorite album, it’s what’s inside me.”

On Thursday evening more than 20 students from the
Orange High School Literacies Partnership
, ranging from 14-17, learned just that and more about the esteemed travel writer in an intimate Q & A session with Iyer and Wilkinson College Dean, Patrick Fuery.

As part of the
Interstices: The In-betweeness of Ethics
event, held just the day before, featuring Iyer,
Wilkinson College
invited students from the program to submit questions for Iyer to answer and sit in on a Panther Production taping showcasing Iyer and Fuery discussing and answering the questions.

The British born essayist of Indian origin has traveled the globe and has seen what happens when cultures converge and combine, exploring the idea of a “global soul”. His travels started at an early age when his parents moved to California

and Iyer would fly back-and-fourth to England for school. Soon thereafter, the Chapman Presidential Fellow found a love for traveling and writing and thus began his long successful career and is known as one of those most revered and respected travel writers alive today.

“How do you go about being submerged into different cultures and not be totally thrown apart? Is there any sense of culture shock that you face in a new area and the society’s reaction to you?”  — a question submitted by senior Andrew Mandel.

“I am more adaptable,” said Iyer. I am used to being a foreigner and that’s fine with me. I can’t control what people think about me.”

Iyer says he tries to write everyday. “Writing is like a sanctuary, I try to go to that space everyday.” However, there are things he likes to do besides writing, such as, taking walks, reading books, watching sports (he says there is no sport he won’t watch) and getting some exercise.

“I play a furious game of ping-pong,” he said.

When asked if he ever loses his passion for writing and if he feels at home when it comes to writing, Iyer answered, “Writing is my home, witting is a blessing. I am in the middle of a passionate love affair with writing.”

After the quick 30 minute taping the cameras were turned off and Iyer was just as gracious and poised as he was when the cameras were on, happy to take the time and answer additional questions from the high school students and even taking a couple of group photos with them.

“I am so grateful for what writing has given me, the chance to give back,” said Iyer. “These were amazing questions.”

Learn more about the The Chapman University/Orange High School Literacies Partnership.