A Beginner’s Guide to Japan: Observations and Provocations

This event is part of the PEN America “Borders and Belonging” Sessions at the 2019 Southern Festival of Books. Free and open to the public, the annual Southern Festival of Books offers readers and writers an opportunity to celebrate the joy of reading and lifelong learning. To learn more, click here.

Pico Iyer is the author of eight works of nonfiction and two novels. A writer for Time since 1982, he is a frequent contributor to The New York Times, Harper’s, The New York Review of Books, the Los Angeles Times, the Financial Times, and many other magazines and newspapers on both sides of the Atlantic and Pacific. He splits his time between Nara, Japan, and the United States.  

Emily Siner is the news director at Nashville Public Radio and host of the Movers & Thinkers podcast. She also reports on a wide range of topics, including higher education, science and veterans. She’s traveled around Tennessee to tell national news stories for NPR and Marketplace.