BEIJING, Apr 10: Indian author and journalist Pallavi Aiyar has launched her latest book, Travels in the Other Place: Pursuing the Self in Eight Acts, at a get-together here.
Travels in the Other Place is a blend of her memoirs, philosophy, and travel writing.
The book, in her words, is an original and introspective collection of eight essays that explore identity and belonging across shifting geographies-both physical and emotional.
Spanning a life that stretches from a bookish childhood in 1980s India to a shock cancer diagnosis in Spain in 2022, the book offers readers a kaleidoscopic view of the self in motion, she said.
It turns the lens of a foreign correspondent inward with insights that are both personal and universal, she said while interacting with Beijing-based journalists and literary personalities on Thursday.
Each essay of the book captures her life at a different stage of life, in a different part of the world, she said.
Over a career spanning more than two decades, Aiyar has reported from China, Belgium, Japan, Indonesia, and Spain, besides India.
She is the author of seven books, among them Smoke and Mirrors, a China memoir that won the Vodafone-Crossword Book Award, as well as Chinese Whiskers, Jakarta Tales, Punjabi Parmesan and Orienting: An Indian in Japan.
She worked earlier as the Beijing-based foreign correspondent for several Indian newspapers, including The Hindu, between 2002 and 2009.
She was the recipient of the Prem Bhatia Memorial Award, besides the China-India Friendship Award presented by the then Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao.
Reflecting on her work, Aiyar noted that Beijing remains central to her intellectual and professional journey. “It is a place that shaped how I think about the world and myself,” she said.
“Being a foreign correspondent helped me learn as much about myself. Launching this book here feels like closing a circle. A homecoming of sorts. This was the geography in which I first found my voice,” she said. (PTI)
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