• Business & Economy
  • Politics & Government
    • Campaign Countdown
      • 2012 Reports
  • Sports
  • High School Sports
    • Football Friday Night
    • Radio Iowa Poll
  • All Topics

Radio Iowa

Iowa's Radio News Network

  • Home
  • Audio Archives
  • Contact Us
  • Reporters
  • Affiliates
  • Affiliate Support
  • PostsComments
You are here: Home / Human Interest / Iowa City author’s memoir includes drugs, sex, crime and recovery

Iowa City author’s memoir includes drugs, sex, crime and recovery

May 12, 2009 By admin

Cheeni Rao An Iowa City author who comes from a long line of Hindu priests has written a memoir detailing his fall into drugs, sex and crime and his eventual recovery.

Cheeni Rao notes that his book, "In Hanuman’s Hands," has the words "a memoir" on the cover, but says it’s much more than an autobiography.

"It’s not just a memoir and it’s not just based on my life but it interweaves a lot of family history that goes back about a thousand years," Rao says.

"It’s playing a lot with ideas of memory, ideas of the line between fiction and non-fiction. I’m using mythologies. I’m using different kinds of stories from my family’s history as well." Hanuman is the mischievous Hindu monkey god who Rao says helped to guide him from his hedonistic nightmare. In the book, Rao says he had visions of Hanuman while smoking crack in the back alleys of Chicago.

"It’s more about a combination of the immigrant experience and the drug experience while also interweaving Hindu mythology and Hinduism in a way that the Western audience can understand," Rao says. "It’s not about any one thing. It’s about everything that was part of my experience growing up."

Rao’s family first came to the U.S. from India in the 1960s and he was born in the Chicago area in the early ’70s. After submitting to many temptations and his eventual recovery, he graduated from the University of Chicago and later, the Iowa Writer’s Workshop at the University of Iowa. He says his writing style is a bit unusual.

"I’d think of something and I’d jot it down on a napkin, sometimes on the palm of my hand and then go back and write it on little scraps of paper," Rao says. "When I was at the workshop, I started writing in specific about the recovery house and all through that, as I continued to unfold the story, I started digging through these notes."

Still living in Iowa City, Rao is now founder and owner of The Iowa Book Doctors, which does one-on-one teaching, creativity coaching and ghostwriting of manuscripts. For more information on Rao, visit his website here .

 

 

AUDIO: Matt Kelley interview of Cheeni Rao. 4:35 MP3


Print pagePDF pageEmail page

Share this:

  • Twitter
  • Google
  • Facebook

Filed Under: Human Interest

Featured Stories

Appeals Court throws out murder verdict saying jury influenced by social media

Packing 40 years of memories, Iowan heads to Barbara Bush’s funeral

Governor approves new Iowa law on ‘food shaming’ and unpaid school lunch debt

Iowa Senate honors Wally Horn for 46-year legislative career

Clive massage therapist facing sexual assault charges

TwitterFacebook

Former Iowa State coach Earle Bruce dies at 87

Golfers tout economic impact on Iowa

Iowa NASCAR driver pays tribute to hockey team

Morris headlines women’s pole vault at Drake

Brady Ellingson joins Drake

More Sports

Tweets by @RadioIowa

eNews and Updates

Enter your email address:

Delivered by FeedBurner

RSS O.KayHenderson.com

  • Campaign surrogates: asset or liability? September 22, 2016
  • Proposed slate of 2016 RNC delegates from #IAGOP May 20, 2016
  • AUDIO: #IAGOP chairman talks about idea of ‘brokered’ convention March 18, 2016
  • @TerryBranstad statement on Obama nominating his cousin to SupCo March 16, 2016
  • ‘Substantial growth’ in voter registrations for both parties from #IACaucus March 15, 2016

Archives

Copyright © 2018 · Learfield News & Ag, LLC