Raja Rao, a path-breaker of Indian writing in English, was born in Hassan, Mysore. He has been awarded the Padma Vibhushan, the Sahitya Akademi Award and the Neustadt International Prize for Literature.The Sacred Wordsmith compiles the best of Raja Rao's writings, including his autobiographical Prefaces and Introductions. The volume puts together several of his noted acceptance speeches, including those for the Sahitya Akademi Award and Neustadt International Prize, and other famous pieces, such as 'The World is Sound', 'The Word', 'Why Do You Write?', 'The West Discovers Sanskrit', 'The English Language and Us', and 'The Story Round, Around Kanthapura', a fascinating, unpublished account of the makings of his famous first novel.
