“Lovely…A book filled with insights, sadness, rumination and splashes of the dazzling travelogue that Iyer’s readers have come to expect.”—Richard Rayner, Los Angeles Times

The Man Within My Head

Ever since he first discovered Graham Greene’s work, Pico Iyer has felt a haunting closeness with the English writer. In The Man Within My Head, Iyer follows Greene’s trail from his first novel, The Man Within, to such later classics as The Quiet American, examining Greene’s obsessions, his elusiveness, and his penchant for mystery. The deeper he plunges into this exploration, the more Iyer begins to wonder whether the man within his head might not be Greene but his own father, or perhaps some more shadowy aspect of himself.

Drawing upon experiences across the globe, from Cuba to Bhutan, and moving, as Greene would, from Sri Lanka in war to intimate moments of introspection, this is the most personal and revelatory book yet from one of our most astute observers of inner journeys and crossing cultures.

A BBC Radio 4 Book of the Week Shortlisted for the Duff Cooper Prize A New Yorker Book of the Year

“A must-read book. As he reveals his struggles to understand Graham Greene, Iyer reveals so much more than ever about himself…Fascinating.”San Francisco Chronicle

“Sensitive and intelligent…What gives the book its peculiar distinction is the range of Iyer’s sympathies—for a diversity of cultures, for varieties of religious belief and for opposed political positions—and his luminous intelligence.”The Wall Street Journal

“Thoughtful and compelling…Insightful, eloquent and truthful, The Man Within My Head will delight all who wonder what is in their own.”The Globe and Mail (Toronto)