Pico Iyer

London-born Iyer lives in America and Japan and calls himself 'a mongrel'. He says he is not sure at the start of any journey what he is going to write about.

"I expect a journey to touch me or shake me in some way," Iyer, best-known for books such as Video Night in Kathmandu and Global Soul, says about his latest travelogue, Sun After Dark: Flights into the Foreign.

He started his writing career by reporting for the Let's Go travel series while studying at Harvard. In his mid-40s, he is part of a fast-growing population of global souls who exist in many cultures 'and so fall in the cracks between them.'

Iyer, who is working on his second novel, says he wants to write a book from a woman's point of view. "I am reading a lot of interesting women writers including Sue Miller," he says.