Autumn Light: Season of Fire and Farewells [Paperback]

In this “exquisite personal blend of philosophy and engagement, inner quiet and worldly life (Los Angeles Times), an acclaimed author returns to his longtime home in Japan after his father-in-law’s sudden death and picks up the steadying patterns of his everyday rites, reminding us to take nothing for granted.

In a country whose calendar is marked with occasions honoring the dead, Pico Iyer comes to reflect on changelessness in ways that anyone can relate to: parents age, children scatter, and Iyer and his wife turn to whatever can sustain them as everything falls away. As the maple leaves begin to turn and the heat begins to soften, Iyer shows us a Japan we have seldom seen before, where the transparent and the mysterious are held in a delicate balance.“[An] exquisite personal blend of philosophy and engagement, inner quiet and worldly life.” —Los Angeles Times

“What holds everything together, besides Iyer’s elegantly smooth prose style and gift for detailed observation, is a circling around the theme of autumn in Japan and this autumnal period in his life.” —The New York Times Book Review

“A sensory feast alive with blaze-red maples, ‘yuzu-colored’ light, haunting temple bells, smoke from fires lighting the paths of the spirit world and the firefly-like winking of lantern-lit graveyards.” —Minneapolis Star Tribune
 
“Exquisite. . . . Replete with a quiet assuredness.” —The New Yorker

“[An] excellent book. . . . Iyer is an admirable example of a citizen of the world—an erudite, open-minded cosmopolitan.” —New Statesman