15 Facts About Raja Rao

Raja Rao was an Indian-American writer of English-language novels and short stories, whose works are deeply rooted in metaphysics.

Raja Rao was born on 8 November 1908 in Hassan, in the princely state of Mysore into a Kannada-speaking Brahmin family and was the eldest of 9 siblings, with seven sisters and a brother named Yogeshwara Ananda.

Raja Rao's mother, Gauramma, was a homemaker who died when Raja Rao was 4 years old.

Raja Rao was educated at a Muslim school, the Madarsa-e-Aliya in Hyderabad.

Raja Rao studied French language and literature, and later at the Sorbonne in Paris, he explored the Indian influence on Irish literature.

Raja Rao married Camille Mouly, who taught French at Montpellier, in 1931.

Raja Rao participated in the Quit India Movement of 1942.

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

Raja Rao borrows the style and structure from Indian vernacular tales and folk-epics.

Raja Rao returned to the theme of Gandhism in the short story collection The Cow of the Barricades.

Raja Rao had great respect for women, and once said, "Women is the Earth, air, ether, sound, women is the microcosm of the mind".

Raja Rao relocated to the United States and was Professor of Philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin from 1966 to 1986, when he retired as Emeritus Professor.

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

Raja Rao died of heart failure on 8 July 2006, at his home in Austin, Texas, at the age of 97.

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