Postcolonial Yearning in Pico Iyer’s Abandon

Asha Sen is currently researching the role of spirituality in contemporary postcolonial literature. Her talk focuses on the spiritual subtext to Pico Iyer's *Abandon.*  She argues that despite the author's overt use of western realist and romantic conventions, it is the novel's adaptation of specific Sufi principles that is key to understanding his work's narrative and symbolic value.