Raja Rao was born in Hassan in the erstwhile state of Mysore (now Karnataka) in the southern part of India on November 8, 1908. Being the eldest in a family of nine siblings, he enjoyed a privileged status. His initial education took place in Madrasa-e-Aliya, a school in Hyderabad meant for high-class Muslims because his father was a teacher of Kannada at Nizam College, Hyderabad. After completing his school in 1925, Rao got admission to Aligarh Muslim University in 1926 where he studied English and French. Later, he did his graduation from Nizam College and in 1929 got an award from the Government of Hyderabad and left for Montpellier in France to study French literature and language. There, Rao married a French teacher, Camille Mouly, who influenced him profoundly and supported and encouraged him to write. He also enrolled for doctoral research on “Indian Influence on Irish Literature” at the La Sorbonne but did not complete it.