Raja Rao's greatest writings, including his autobiographical Prefaces and Introductions, are collected in The Sacred Wordsmith. The book includes a number of his well-known acceptance speeches, such as those for the Sahitya Akademi Award and Neustadt International Prize, as well as other well-known writings, including "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"The West Discovers Sanskrit," "The English Language and Us," and "The Story Round, Around Kanthapura," a fascinating, unpublished account of the creation of his well-known first novel.