Rani Manicka is an International Best selling novelist, born and educated in Malaysia; She grew up in Terengganu and attended the University of Malaysia, where she received a business degree. She currently divides her time between Malaysia and the United Kingdom. Infused with her own Sri Lankan Tamil family history, The Rice Mother is her first novel, and it won the Commonwealth Writers' Prize in 2003 for South East Asia and South Pacific region. Her second novel, Touching Earth, was published in 2005 followed by The Japanese Lover released in 2009. She is currently putting the finishing touches to her latest work titled 'Black Jack'.