Raja Rao (8 November 1908 – 8 July 2006) was an Indian-American writer of English-language novels and short stories, whose works are deeply rooted in metaphysics.

The Serpent and the Rope (1960), a semi-autobiographical novel recounting a search for spiritual truth in Europe and India, established him as one of the finest Indian prose stylists and won him the Sahitya Akademi Award in 1963.

[2] Raja Rao was born on 8 November 1908 in Hassan, in the princely state of Mysore (now in Karnataka in South India) into a Kannada-speaking Brahmin family[3][4] and was the eldest of 9 siblings, with seven sisters and a brother named Yogeshwara Ananda.

After graduating from the University of Madras, having majored in English and history, he won the Asiatic Scholarship of the Government of Hydrabad in 1929, for studying abroad.

He was a prime mover in the formation of cultural organisation Sri Vidya Samiti, devoted to reviving the values of ancient Indian civilisation.

In 1986, after his divorce from Katherine, Rao married his third wife, Susan Vaught, whom he met when she was a student at the University of Texas in the 1970s.

It was established "to recognize writers and scholars who have made an out standing contribution to the Literature and Culture of the South Asian Diaspora.

"[11][12] The award was administered by the Samvad India Foundation, a nonprofit charitable trust named for the Sanskrit word for dialogue, which was established by Makarand Paranjape of Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi to bestow the award and to promote education and cultural contributions to India and the South Asian diaspora.

[13][14] Other recipients were Yasmine Gooneratne of Sri Lanka,[15][16] Edwin Thumboo of Singapore,[17][18][19] Harsha V. Dehejia of Canada,[11][20] David Dabydeen of Guyana,[21][22] Varadaraja V. Raman of the United States,[23][24][25] and Vijay Mishra of Fiji.

The main character of the novel, Moorthy, is a young Brahmin who leaves for the city to study, where he becomes familiar with Gandhian philosophy.

He begins living a Gandhian lifestyle, wearing home-spun khaddar and discarded foreign clothes and speaking out against the caste system.

Moorthy is then invited by Brahmin clerks at the Skeffington coffee estate to create an awareness of Gandhian teachings among the pariah coolies.

A unit of the independence committee is formed in Kanthapura, with office bearers vowing to follow Gandhi's teachings under Moorthy's leadership.

While Moorthy spends the next three months in prison, the women of Kanthapura take charge, forming a volunteer corps under Rangamma's leadership.