The Door Swings Both Ways

A First Look at China, 1985

Author Pico Iyer
Ebook
On sale Jan 26, 2016 | 48 Pages | 9781101972540

A Vintage Shorts Travel Selection
 
Welcome to China in 1985, to a nation that has just begun to swing open for the West, and specifically for a young Time magazine journalist named Pico Iyer. From the beloved set of travel essays Video Night in Kathmandu, this is his dispatch.
 
From Beijing to Chengdu to Guangzhou, Iyer crisscrosses the country, making friends, gathering impressions, and always getting to the train station early (very early). Along the way he encounters a China eager to take in Western goods, but not always Western values—and a Great Wall, established to keep the world out, that’s now being used to draw it in. Neither Easterner nor Westerner knows where to turn. With frank curiosity and prophetic clarity, Iyer’s travel essays have become the gold standard for the genre. Here he gives us a time capsule of an ambiguous and fast-changing China that remains strikingly familiar even today.
 
An eBook short.
© Derek Shapton
Pico Iyer is the author of fifteen books, translated into twenty-three languages, and has been a constant contributor for more than thirty years to Time, The New York Times, Harper’s Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, and more than 250 other periodicals worldwide. His four recent talks for TED have received more than eleven million views. www.picoiyerjourneys.com View titles by Pico Iyer

About

A Vintage Shorts Travel Selection
 
Welcome to China in 1985, to a nation that has just begun to swing open for the West, and specifically for a young Time magazine journalist named Pico Iyer. From the beloved set of travel essays Video Night in Kathmandu, this is his dispatch.
 
From Beijing to Chengdu to Guangzhou, Iyer crisscrosses the country, making friends, gathering impressions, and always getting to the train station early (very early). Along the way he encounters a China eager to take in Western goods, but not always Western values—and a Great Wall, established to keep the world out, that’s now being used to draw it in. Neither Easterner nor Westerner knows where to turn. With frank curiosity and prophetic clarity, Iyer’s travel essays have become the gold standard for the genre. Here he gives us a time capsule of an ambiguous and fast-changing China that remains strikingly familiar even today.
 
An eBook short.

Author

© Derek Shapton
Pico Iyer is the author of fifteen books, translated into twenty-three languages, and has been a constant contributor for more than thirty years to Time, The New York Times, Harper’s Magazine, the Los Angeles Times, and more than 250 other periodicals worldwide. His four recent talks for TED have received more than eleven million views. www.picoiyerjourneys.com View titles by Pico Iyer

Three Penguin Random House Authors Win Pulitzer Prizes

On Monday, May 5, three Penguin Random House authors were honored with a Pulitzer Prize. Established in 1917, the Pulitzer Prizes are the most prestigious awards in American letters. To date, PRH has 143 Pulitzer Prize winners, including William Faulkner, Eudora Welty, Josh Steinbeck, Ron Chernow, Anne Applebaum, Colson Whitehead, and many more. Take a look at our 2025 Pulitzer Prize

Read more

Books for LGBTQIA+ Pride Month

In June we celebrate Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer, Intersex, and Asexual + (LGBTQIA+) Pride Month, which honors the 1969 Stonewall riots in Manhattan. Pride Month is a time to both celebrate the accomplishments of those in the LGBTQ+ community and recognize the ongoing struggles faced by many across the world who wish to live

Read more