Mani Rao is an acclaimed poet, translator, and scholar, and the author of thirteen poetry collections, including So That You Know (HarperCollins, 2025). Her celebrated translations of the Bhagavad Gita, Saundarya Lahari, and Kalidasa’s works bring classical Indian literature into contemporary dialogue. Her study Living Mantra: Mantra, Deities and Visionary Experience Today (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019) explores mantra as lived spiritual experience.
A former resident of the Iowa International Writing Program and OMI Ledig House, Rao has performed at major literary festivals worldwide, including the Jaipur Literature Festival, PEN World Voices Festival in New York, and Melbourne Writers’ Festival. Her poetry and essays have appeared in leading journals and anthologies, and her work has been translated into several languages. She holds an MFA from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, and a PhD in Religious Studies from Duke University. She is currently writing a four-book series on selected Upanishads.