After a 1990 wildfire destroyed his home and possessions, Iyer started over. The loss led him to a Benedictine monastery, where he found comfort and compassion in solitude. His new memoir is Aflame.

How to Listen. For decades, starting in 1991 after his house in Santa Barbara burned to the ground, the travel writer and essayist Pico Iyer

When the cacophony of the world grows too loud, author Pico Iyer knows just where to go. For decades, the British travel writer has been journeying from his home in Japan to sit in silence at Big Sur’s New Camaldoli Hermitage.

Pico Iyer has visited a small, Benedictine hermitage in California more than 100 times in the last 30 years. He isn't religious, but his life has been transformed by these times spent in silence.

Editor’s note: Find the latest coverage of the Pacific Palisades wildfire here. Wildfires began breaking out in Southern California Tuesday morning as a life-threatening, widespread windstorm ...